Awakening
by xuxi
Summary: An EU setting in the Old Republic - join a cast of OCs to follow a tale of a Jedi Knight, as a disappearance sets him on a journey across the galaxy, a journey through death, the Jedi Code, and the depths of darkness.
1. Vulpter

**Vulpter**

It began on Vulpter.

Vulpter lies in the Deep Core, and at the time it was already a planet polluted beyond salvation. Heavy industrialisation had transformed the surface of the formerly lush world into a sprawling mess of factories and junkyards, and had long since rendered the planet largely incapable of sustaining plant life. The Vulptereens had gradually been forced into a position of near-total reliance on foreign imports for food. A long history of industrial waste being shot into orbit created the features that no visitor to Vulpter will ever forget, and it was this feature, the massive, dark rings of waste orbiting the planet which greeted the two Jedi as their ship left hyperspace.

In the small courier ship were Master Xin Zovo and Jedi Knight Kasra Zhan. The purpose of their visit was the investigation of a disappearance on Vulpter. A young Jedi by the name of Amila, a Togruta who had only recently been made a Jedi Knight, had disappeared without a trace not quite a standard month ago. She was last recorded on Vulpter, but all attempts to regain contact with her had failed, and the reason for her presence on Vulpter was unclear.

The courier passed by a giant advertising board placed on Vulpter's rings of junk, and began its descent down to the city of Hpaq.

"Look at it - the planet is a wasteland," said Xin as the courier came in to land.

"The huge belts of junk orbiting it didn't give that away?" quipped Kasra.

Wasteland was putting it mildly. It was a miracle that Vulpter could support any life at all. Kasra had to agree, its atmosphere looked absolutely toxic. The sky was completely covered with impenetrably thick purple clouds. The air was so horribly spoiled that the taint of pollution was visible floating around you with your own naked eye.

The courier ship landed in a hangar, which thankfully minimised the amount of the filthy air the Jedi had to breathe. They were guided to their lodgings by two Vulptereens who spoke only a minimal amount to them, and then left them to their own devices.

The place they were given to stay was a small apartment which had a view of Hpaq that, if it were another city, might have been nice. Hpaq was one of those cities which, by and large, looked the same no matter where you were. No matter how high above the ground your apartment was, uncountably many more skyscrapers towered above you; no matter how low your apartment was, it always seemed that there was always an impossibly long stretch down to the ground. Kasra stood at the window looking out upon the city. It was late at night in Hpaq upon their arrival. All the lights in the city took on a ghostly glow as they shone through the haze in the air, which made all the lights look just a little more distant, and just a little bit more faded.

Behind him, Master Zovo sat meditating on the floor. Kasra glanced his way. He had all the look of a sage. His eyes were closed. His breathing was deep and slow. One might be forgiven for thinking he was a statue.

* * *

The disappearance of Amila was a problem with no hints as to its solution. She was on Vulpter. Beyond that, they knew nothing. Her purpose on the planet was unknown. It came as a total surprise that she was determined to have been on the planet at all. So the task of the two Jedi was to investigate a mystery which was shrouded in complete darkness.

It was in times like these that the Force would be their most faithful guide. And at the end of Master Zovo's long, silent meditation the Force guided them to a great underground marketplace. The marketplace was expansive. It was so large that the full extent of the place was impossible to see from any one vantage point, and travelling through the bustle of the lookers and the buyers at the busy street vendors took them on long and winding paths which closed up behind them and vanished into the crowd as they went. The Knight and Master wore nondescript clothing and eased themselves through the throng, hands gently guiding themselves inoffensively past the tightly packed people, Xin looking perfectly genial, Kasra a little more alert, having the feeling in him of being in wait for an impending arrival and remaining on the lookout for it, though what he was waiting for he had no idea. To their left their was a Rodian, selling something which the dense cluster of potential customers around him hid from their sight; just over from the Rodian was a Twi'lek selling all sorts of food with delicious scents which unfailingly pulled over hungry customers within its radius; over from the Twi'lek was a Dug, and from what Kasra could see there was no way the weapons the Dug had on sale could all be legal.

Kasra's head was torn away from the Dug's dodgy dealings as a sudden jolt stopped him in his tracks. He looked down in front of him to see a small Amaran boy, who apologised profusely for smacking into him.

"Oh, no harm done," said Xin with a warm voice and a smile, and he carried on strolling through the market with the smile still on his face.

The boy went to go on his way, but was stopped by the hand of Kasra on his shoulder pulling him back to face an outstretched palm. The boy looked up at Kasra with a pitiable look on his face.

The Jedi rolled his eyes. "I'm not an idiot. I've done the same thing myself. Go on," he said.

The boy's face warped to take on a look of contempt. He slapped his stolen credits back into their owner's hand and walked away with a swagger. Kasra stood watching him leave. When he turned back around and carried on walking, he saw Master Zovo in the middle of a conversation with what looked like a new friend.

He was chatting with a Vulptereen who was also selling food, but was rather less successful than the Twi'lek girl not too far from him, with only a couple of other people eyeing up his food aside from the Jedi Master. Another Vulptereen managed the other customers, while the first was engaged in conversation with Xin.

"Ah!" exclaimed Xin as Kasra approached the two. "You've returned. Hard not to be drawn to the scent, isn't it?"

Kasra felt that there was a certain significance to his old Master's former choice of the word _drawn_. The Vulptereen made some comment about his tail-head competitor only getting more sales because of her - for politeness' sake, we'll pretend that he simply said 'her good looks.'

"I was just asking him about how long he's been a cook," said Xin. "He's had quite a misfortune."

Between the two of them, the frustrated Vulptereen's angered comments, and Xin's perpetual obliviousness to that anger and bitterness, they related to him the story he'd missed. The poor Vulptereen had not been a cook for very long at all. Not even a standard month. Despite Xin's enthusiasm for the food, whatever it was, that he'd bought and had started eating, it was fairly obvious on all fronts - the smell, the look, and the lack of buyer enthusiasm for it - that he wasn't very experienced. But these two had indirectly been the victims of an explosion. A place nearby had some bizarre accident, and what it was they still don't know, but all of a sudden, there was a great explosion, and their business had been so heavily damaged that returning to work was impossible, and in the meantime, the two of them had decided to do the only other thing they knew how to do in order to make money, which was try to cook and sell what they could make at the markets, though clearly it had bought them very little profit.

"Where was this explosion?" asked Kasra.

"It was a small building owned by the incompetent idiots over at New Sun," said the cook.

"New Sun?"

"New Sun Engineering," he said. "Mostly starship manufacturing."

Kasra glanced up to Xin, who looked back at him while licking his fingers.

The Vulptereen interrupted their silent communication. "Now are you going to buy anything else, or not?"

* * *

"New Sun? You can't have been on Vulpter too long if you haven't heard of New Sun."

"Starships, weapons, probably some droids, too. You name it, they probably make it, and by the way you're dressed, you certainly couldn't afford it."

"Yes, terrible explosion, wasn't it? I could hear it all the way from my place. One of their workshops, or something. Just exploded. Don't know what went wrong, though."

"Well, they were asking for it, as far as I'm concerned. Any engineer with a brain knows that New Sun will cut all the corners you can think of and a lot more you didn't as long as they make a quick profit off it. Work with the stuff they work with and you're lucky explosions aren't more frequent occurences."

"New Sun! Do yourselves a favour and don't even bother! Ha!"

"Oh, it's on its way to become one of the biggest engineering corporations in the galaxy. You should see the things we're doing there! The company's come out of nothing to start producing some of the finest ships in the galaxy, and at a much more affordable price than anyone else does."

After a succession of appraisals, dismissals, sneering criticisms and mindless rants, the two Jedi arrived at a youthful human man, whose eyes seemed to light up when they spoke the words 'New Sun.' But before the young man could continue his adulation, Master Zovo raised his hands slightly, and leaned in and asked him, "You work for this company?"

The man's smile only grew bigger. "Working on starships is something I've wanted to do since forever ago. So you'll have to forgive me for being quick to start singing their praises, 'cause this is a dream job for me. I only hope they don't catch on and move me from engineering to PR."

Both the Jedi laughed with the man. "Just fortunate you weren't involved in that explosion, then," said Kasra.

"Yeah," the man said with a heavier voice than before. "Unfortunate accident. Though I never worked around there, so fortunately I was safe a long way away."

"What happened, anyway? Did they tell you?"

"Well, not exactly, no. I don't know if anyone knows for sure, beyond a bit of talk around work. The actual investigation didn't turn up anything conclusive, as far as I know."

"Oh, what's the talk around work?" Xin asked.

The man's face twisted slightly in apprehension, but before he could say anything Kasra interrupted him with an eager smile and a pointed finger. "Oh, it's something exciting," he said, pointing at the young man's face. "See that? It's something good, he knows it."

The man couldn't help but laugh and look down with a sheepish smirk. "No, it's nothing like that - "

"No, no, no, don't give us that. Come on, I'm a Jedi, half the fun of being in the Order is getting the inside details on stuff like this."

The man's eyes widened. "You're a Jedi?" He looked between the two of them with the wild excitement of a child written all over his face.

"I was like you," Kasra said, like a mirror, his own face taking on the same childlike enthusiasm as the man in front of him. "I dreamed of becoming a Jedi Knight as a small child, and you can only imagine how exciting it was the day I found out destiny was on my side, and I was going to the Jedi Academy to learn all about the Force. Sometimes it still amazes me, to look back and see where life took me. It must be the same feeling you get when you see one of your completed starships. The feeling of having found the thing it is you were meant to do."

"Yeah," the man breathed, "I know what you mean." He couldn't help but dart his eyes down to Kasra's waist to look for a lightsaber. "Oh, anyway," he said, apparently returning from the excitement-induced trance he seemed to be in, "like I said, it's really just talk. A few of the other guys at New Sun have been wondering if it wasn't industrial espionage. Due to our rapid growth, we've had trouble with Corellian Engineering Corporation, which doesn't want to lose its spot at the top, you know? I don't know if there's anything to support it, but apparently there was some suspicions about that going on a while ago. I don't know. It's probably nothing, anyway."

"Why industrial espionage? I don't think I've heard of CEC having a reputation for that sort of thing."

"Well, you wouldn't, because they're at the top of this industry. Like I said, it's probably nothing, but it's not a completely wild theory. There was a guy, another engineer, who some of the other guys had thought was pretty strange for a while. He came back from a trip from - I don't know, somewhere else in the Deep Core, and then he was just downright weird, apparently. Don't ask me how, because I didn't really know the guy, but he became very secretive, so I heard. Would disappear, and wouldn't let anybody know where he went. Weird guy. I shouldn't tell you this - in fact, I shouldn't have told you any of this, so both of you keep all this to yourselves - but apparently one of the guys found out that on a personal datapad of his they got during the investigation after the accident, he'd been stalking this woman or something. Some Togruta woman. There were all these images of the same woman on there, always taken from afar. They never found out who she was. And as if that wasn't bad enough, there's some talk that some of his finances don't quite add up."

 _A Togruta woman._ But wait - "What do you mean, they took his datapad during the investigation of the accident? I thought this was just talk."

"Well. The same day as the explosion, he went missing. They never found his body there."

Xin's initial silent disapproval of Kasra sharing their Jedi status with this man vanished. And it was replaced with his full interest in this man. With a touch of the Force behind his voice, he said to the engineer, "Why don't you take us somewhere we can find out more about this man?"

* * *

The headquarters of New Sun Engineering were a giant slab of architecture placed right in the centre of Hpaq. The height of the monument was enough that it cut an imposing figure, looming ahead of them for a long time before they finally drew close enough to make out the details of the building. Its width exceeded its height, and when the building finally ended there was yet more territory carved out of the city for it, and several New Sun starships could be seen lined up outside the building.

They were received by a short Neimoidian, who held a datapad in his hands, and would frequently return his eyes down to its screen. Master Zovo attempted to hold what he could of the Neimoidian's attention.

"We heard of a problem that your company might be having with a certain employee - or former employee, I take it - and, as it turns out, your problem may be closely related to one of our own. We thought that it might be more efficient if the two of us could work together for a resolution - I'm sorry," he said, leaning down and waving his hand slightly, "do we have your attention?"

The Neimoidian looked up briefly and then returned his gaze down to the datapad again. "Master Jedi, as I'm sure you've heard, and if you haven't, I hope it was implied by what you saw of this building and the multiple state-of-the-art starships around it, we are all very busy here. You will have my full attention when you get to the point."

The two Jedi shared a glance, eyebrows raised.

"You suspect a missing employee of industrial espionage. We heard images of a Togruta were found on his datapad. We're investigating the disappearance of a Togruta female. If they are the same, we might be able to assist each other, and resolve both our problems much more effectively."

At that, the Neimoidian looked up from his datapad at Xin, and then at Kasra. He looked both of them over, before in a demanding tone, he snapped, "Who told you this?"

"That's not important."

"I consider it very important."

"We overheard a conversation held indiscreetly. There's no information we can give you."

"The point is," said Kasra, "we need to see the Togruta. If you can show us the images on his datapad, we can be of great benefit to you in getting to the bottom of your problem."

The Neimoidian stared at the two of them, not saying anything, just staring, for the longest time. Then he turned, and while walking away he called out, "Stay there." And he walked down the hall until he vanished.

Kasra remained standing, while Xin sat and closed his eyes. His breathing slowed until it it was so slow it seemed as if he had halted his breathing altogether. Kasra stood, looking down the hall, and then eventually resigned himself to a seat beside Xin and closed his eyes as well.

At last, the Neimoidian returned. Both the Jedi sensed his presence and opened their eyes at his approach. The Neimoidian held a slightly different make of datapad in his hands this time. "The datapad will not be accessed by anyone outside of New Sun. Jedi or not. However, we have decided to accept your offer of aid. Here - " and with outstretched hand he offered Xin the datapad, "is a datapad with only the images of the Togruta."

They knew immediately once they saw the first image. Although she was in a crowd, they recognised her right away. There, in the crowds of the underground market they had just visited, was Amila. And there she was in the next one. Again in the markets. And there she was again, this time seated by herself at a table with a drink on it.

"Well?" asked the Neimoidian.

Kasra nodded his head.

A slow smile split the Neimoidian's face. "Then it seems we've found our man. And it looks like your new destination is Corellia."

That was how it all began.


	2. Corellia

**Corellia**

Meditation is a fine art. Every Jedi must know it. In order that they do learn it, and learn it well, every Padawan meditates many times a day, whenever an opportunity to do so presents itself. A Jedi focuses on the emotions in themselves, and then they let go; they let them simply slip away. There is no emotion; there is peace.

And it is through deep inner peace that a Jedi is most connected to the Force. Without meditation, deep connection to the Force is impossible.

Kasra sat in meditation in Coronet City. He sat cross-legged on the bed, in front of a window which looked over the rest of the city, which now was bathed in deep golden evening sunlight. His mind was an empty vessel, through which thoughts passed through like valley breezes pass over one's face before they continued by on their way. And behind them, they left the sense of peace. And in that peace, in that nothingness and silence of thought, is found true clarity. There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.

In that clarity he allowed the Force to guide him. He emptied his mind and opened it up to the Force, to bring to him what it may, in the hope that he might be led to Amila, that the Force might be his guiding beacon through the darkness of her mystery. But that is not what came to him. When he opened his empty mind he saw looming ahead of him a roiling black cloud named uncertainty.

Then he opened his eyes.

* * *

Corellian Engineering Corporation, or CEC for short, was the galaxy's supreme force in starship manufacturing. And it showed. Create a picture of the history of the galaxy's history, and mark down on your timeline the establishment of CEC. What will you see? You will see that after the date of the establishment of CEC, the galaxy's most popular, most iconic starships have nearly unanimously been a product of that corporation. Look into the future, and you will likely see the same.

The head office of this organisation was their destination. Unlike New Sun, CEC maintained their offices in a separate location to their manufacturing plants, and their head office was in one of the tallest skyscrapers in the whole of Coronet, one with a very ambitious view. It was only at the very end of the day that the company had agreed to see them, so when the doors parted and they walked into the suite, the scene out the panoramic window was of the tallest spires of Coronet glittering like stars on the black canvas of the night.

The floor was a dark purple. At the opposite end of the room was a large desk. Behind the desk, on the wall, was emblazoned the CEC logo; a symbol of the Corellian system with two golden dodecagons around it, between which was the company name. Seated behind the desk was a tall man, who sat with his fingers interlaced, engaged in a conversation with a woman in a chair in front of the desk, and as the two Jedi entered the office the conversation silenced itself and the woman turned around in her chair to face them.

"Oh," said Xin, "our apologies. We didn't mean to intrude."

"Not at all," said the man behind the desk. "We were just finishing here."

The woman stood up, head down, preoccupied with her datapad, and turned to leave. As she passed the Jedi, Kasra glanced at her, and caught a glimpse of the side of her face beneath her black curtains of hair. He saw long, thin scars, tracing wicked lines over her cheek and across her eye. His eyes briefly stayed with her as she walked out.

The Jedi took two chairs in front of the desk. Mr. Vistag, who was the man behind the desk, and more importantly, was the CEO of Corellian Engineering, unlaced his fingers and rested his elbows on the desk, palms facing up to the ceiling. "So, how can I help?"

Master Zovo took the lead. "We're investigating the disappearance of a Jedi Knight, and it was recently discovered that an employee of a rival company, New Sun Engineering, had multiple images of her on his datapad before they both disappeared. According to information they give us, he was one of your former employees as well, and was paid by you to report back to them. We're hoping you can give us information on the Jedi woman."

"Firstly, Corellian Engineering Corporation has no rival company. Secondly, are you asking me to admit to industrial espionage?"

Xin leaned in, and he fixed Mr. Vistag with his gaze. "Yes. I want you to tell us everything you know about this man."

Mr. Vistag leaned in over his desk, glancing between the two Jedi's eyes as if about to share with them a deep secret. And he whispered, in a hushed tone, "If you Jedi try that mind trick stuff with me again, I'll have you thrown out of here so fast you won't know what hit you." He leaned back, and he laughed. "You think I'd become the CEO of one of the most successful corporations in the galaxy and not learn how to deal with your kind and your precious Force tricks?" He laughed, and when he laughed it was a cruel laughter, not borne of humour, but rather a sneering cackle intended to mock its object. He leaned back in towards the Jedi again, and brought his fingers back together again. "But I'll help you. I admire your boldness. What I'll tell you is this: CEC is the leader in its industry. We do have rivals. Yes, you're right about that. And we know how to deal with competition. That's how we stay on top. So, yes, certain employees of New Sun may be performing certain tasks for CEC. But even if you did find that the claims of New Sun were true, I guarantee you that not one of the things we've done with them is illegal. You'll get nowhere with that. Now, with your problem, what I can tell you is that CEC has never had Jedi followed. No offense, but I couldn't care less about your world. Which makes me of no use to you."

"Well, the man's gone missing, and we need to find out -"

Mr. Vistag stood. "I'm well aware of the situation on Vulpter, thank you. Which means I'm aware that there will be an official investigation, which means that eventually, if any good reason is found to implicate anyone even remotely related to CEC, then I will be contacted by the proper authorities, and I'll deal with them then. Now, as you can see," he said, with a gesture to the window, "it's late, and I'm obviously a busy man. Take care." With that, he gestured to the door.

* * *

The two returned to the roof of the building, where their transport waited. The wind whipped their robes around them, and muted their voices so that they almost had to shout to each other as they walked.

"Right now I wish they'd given us any other mission at all," Master Zovo said. "I can't stand all this politics and business nonsense. Give me the most life-threatening situation you can, anything but dealing with these people. You know, I'm more at danger of death by suicide speaking to men like that than I am in battle with a Sith Lord."

"So what do you recommend we do now? Dealing with him's apparently going nowhere."

"I was thinking perhaps it would be best to return to Vulpter, and see how we can aid them there."

Xin walked on towards the transport, turning his head down to press through the wind. Behind him, Kasra had stopped, and was standing perfectly still on the roof. Xin turned around to look at him.

"What is it?"

Without any warning or any explanation as to why, something came over him, and all of a sudden he felt - no, he couldn't just leave without getting any answers from the one man who could give them right away, if only he wanted to. The thought instantly swelled up in his mind until he was overcome with the desire to go back and get what it was they came for. No, he would not have a Jedi stay missing because of that man's selfishness. He turned around and started heading back for the doors that would take him inside the building again.

"Kasra," called out Xin from behind him. "He won't cooperate with us."

"Just let me try this time," he called back, without turning around or breaking his stride. "I won't be long." Xin returned to their transport, and Kasra returned into the building.

He went to the elevator, and it took him back down to the floor where Mr. Vistag's office was located. The doors opened, and he strode out of it and went straight for the doors into the office, but as he approached them they remained sealed closed. He reached out and rapped on the door with his knuckles, but there was no response.

"He left shortly after he thought you did," said a voice from behind him.

Kasra turned around to face the voice. It was the woman.

Now he saw her face in full for the first time. It was covered with scars on both sides. All of them were long and thin streaks across her face. A few of them extended from just above her eye all the way down, over her eyelid, down her cheek, to her jaw. A few more, on the other side of her face, criss-crossed her cheek. Another smaller one ran through the corner of her lips. Despite all of that, he could not say she was an ugly woman; not at all. Her appearance was simply - unique.

"Oh. Thank you. Are you his secretary?"

"No. But perhaps I could help anyway." The woman did not take her eyes off him while he pondered it. She was so unlike the Neimoidian they had met on Vulpter; her attention was absolutely fixated on him.

After a pause he spoke. "What is it that this company pays people to do on Vulpter?"

"Is that a general question, or are you asking about one person in particular?"

"I take it you know who I mean, then."

"Luvo, the missing man."

"I remember hearing that name, yes. That's the one."

"So, why would a Jedi be interested in him?"

"Because he is related to the disappearance of another Jedi."

"My question still stands, then. Why would a Jedi be interested in him? Or alternatively, why would he be interested in a Jedi?"

Kasra stopped to look at this woman. "I was under the impression I was asking you the questions."

She smiled. "I said I could help you, not that I could provide you with answers. I don't work here. As such, I have no way of knowing exactly what this man was paid to do. But why don't you ask yourself this: What use would an ship engineering corporation have for a Jedi?" When Kasra could give her no response, she went on. "It's difficult to come up with any reason, isn't it? Which suggests that it is my first question which is the one you should answer. Why would a Jedi be interested in him?"

It was as if, hearing the words of this woman, all of his separate thoughts on the matter had come together right then and organised themselves into a coherent structure. Of course! They had never stopped to consider the possibility that they had it the wrong way around. The only images were of her in public places, in crowds, or at a distance in a public building. Wouldn't it be strange to pursue someone and only have images of them in places like that? And to only have such a small number of them? It wasn't that he was following Amila; Amila was following him. The real question, then, was to find what it was that he was doing that caught her attention.

"What is it you do, then, if you don't work here?" he asked her.

"A corporation as big as this one interacts with many other parties. I'm one of them. You could think of me as a consultant. Judging by our current conversation, maybe you could use my services too."

"I certainly wouldn't mind it. You have a talent for insight."

There was a moment of silence as the two stood looking at each other, before she spoke again. "I hope I've been of assistance." And with that, she turned and started walking away.

"Wait," Kasra called out. "Who are you?"

She turned around to face him. "Vaia," was all she said. And then she was gone.

* * *

Kasra stood with Xin in front of the holoprojector in the morning of the next day, the two of them appearing in front of the Jedi Council in Coruscant.

"We believe," said Kasra, "that Amila disappeared while pursuing this man. We have no proof at the moment, but we also believe that he was working for Corellian Engineering Corporation on Vulpter. We don't know what he did to cause Amila to take an interest in him. At least, not yet."

"Exercise caution," came the voice of Master Jaresh from behind them. "Although she was a new Jedi Knight, Amila was a wise woman, and one gets the feeling that there is much more to this yet to reveal itself. I advise you both to proceed from this point with extreme care."

This was met by nodded heads all around the Council.

"Keep us updated with any further developments," was the final word. And then the display went out.

The two Jedi had been placed in individual rooms in the place they were staying. Each of their rooms were identical. They were the bare essentials and nothing more, apart from a gorgeous view. Kasra returned to his room after the holoprojector meeting with the Jedi Council with Xin, and after he had gone, Xin sat down in front of the window to meditate.

As he was meditating, there was a knock and then the door to hid room opened behind him. He opened his eyes and glanced at the reflection in the window.

"Just the maintenance," said the man. "Apologies about the intrusion. We had issues in the bathroom of this room with the last guest."

"That's no trouble," said Xin, and closed his eyes as the man took his tools and went into the bathroom. He returned to his meditation.

This time, when he meditated, he felt different. Though he tried to calm his mind and let the Force guide him as it was before the interruption, this time his meditation felt impeded. His focus remained firmly in this room, with himself.

Then he heard the door to the bathroom open again. And when he did, the Force drove his hand to his lightsaber without a second's delay. He leapt to his feet, bright green blade ignited and in hand, and he brought it across his body just in time to protect him from a dart fired from the gun of the man standing in the doorway, now fully adorned in the armour of a Mandalorian warrior.

The Mandalorian took out a small rifle, and fired a rapid series of shots at the Jedi. The glass shattered behind Xin, but he deflected all of the shots heading for his body. He came at the Mandalorian, but as he swung his lightsaber it was met with a sword of Mandalorian iron. He brought his lightsaber back around for another strike, but the Mandalorian parried as easily as if his sword were an extension of his arms, and went to sweep Xin's leg. The Jedi leapt backwards, out of the way, and the Mandalorian charged him before he had a chance to regain proper footing, and Xin found himself with his back to the wall, lightsaber crackling as he held off the sword, with the pitiless face of a Mandalorian helmet looking down at him.

In the next room, Kasra heard the sound of the rifle being fired, and he ran out into the hallway with his lightsaber in hand. He tried the door to Xin's room, but he found it locked. He ignited his lightsaber and rammed its violet blade right through the control panel, and the door sprung open.

He raised his lightsaber and brought it around in an arc intended for the Mandalorian's arm. The Mandalorian moved out of the way just in time, and then stood with his back to the shattered window, facing down two Jedi. Before either of them could make another strike at him, he stepped back. And he fell, his back to the ground and his head to the sky, falling down the side of the Coronet skyscraper, and the two Jedi stood at the very edge looking down, watching him fall. He fell until he was a tiny speck below them, and then they saw a small flicker of light, which arced away from the side of the building and flew away into the midst of the city.

"Well," said Xin as he put his lightsaber away, "at least we know we're getting somewhere."

* * *

Kasra sat cross-legged on the bed.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

With each long breath, the distractions of the physical world slipped further away, until his body felt as far separate from the floor under it as his mind did to his body, yet both intimately connected as part of the same whole. He breathed slowly. He breathed a long deep breath like one about to submerge himself in deep water. With that breath, his mind floated away, drifting with the current of the Force. He felt its ripples flow under him, flow through him, until he himself felt almost about to dissolve into just an intricate interlacing of ripples on the surface of the river. Yet he never did. And though he had never known a greater peace than he felt in that moment, adrift in the Force, he would never progress any further than that, as if, though the river flowed on and wanted to carry him with it, there was something heavy tied to him deep underwater that all the might of the water would never move.


	3. Get the Mandalorian

**Get the Mandalorian**

How could they not have any leads on him? He posed as maintenance staff, hid battle armour in a toolbox, not to mention the weapons he somehow got in undetected, and attempted an assassination in broad daylight, and there was not one shred of evidence to suggest who this man might be, or where he went? According to the staff, all recording devices in all the areas the assassin must have travelled through to get to the room failed for a very brief period of time. Brief enough that the issue was ignored, initially; long enough that the assassin was gone when the cameras corrected themselves. And since the assassination attempt, the Mandalorian had vanished.

The Mandalorians were a warrior race. War was their culture. It was not war born of malice, but war for the sake of the fight. The honour was in the conflict itself. To a Mandalorian, all the world was a stage for one great conflict. Through conflict, the strong rose above the weak. Through conflict, there was growth. What better way to test oneself than through battle, and what better way to prove oneself than through conquest? It must come as no surprise then, to anyone who knows the culture of the Mandalorians, familiar with the way war runs in their blood, that they were drawn to life as mercenaries. Take any job in the galaxy which trades credits for blood, and you will find a Mandalorian who has made a name for himself in that profession.

It was their hope that they could use the natural talent for bloodshed of a Mandalorian to their advantage. A Mandalorian assassin must have earned a reputation. All that was needed was to look in the right place. Which meant seeking out the worst people on the planet.

They took the hovertrain to Blue Sector that night. If Coronet City were truly the Jewel of Corellia, as it liked to be known, the Jewel had an ugly crack in it named Blue Sector. This was the promised land where all the aspiring scammers, thieves, lowlife degenerates and thugs could prosper. There was no other place in Coronet, there was no other place on Corellia, where you would find people ready to sell you anything you could dream of for the right price. Drugs that make you feel like you've got sunshine in your head and lightning in your bones. A painful death for your ex husband or wife - buy from the right guys and it'll be just like a suicide. No other place in Corellia where from any apartment, any at all, that you choose for your stay, you would never find fewer than ten brothels within a convenient walking distance, all of them with minds just as open as their legs, where any pleasure at all is on sale. No other place in Corellia where you would find a junkyard that didn't care whether your kind of waste was living or not. Don't like the suicide option? Make them disappear completely.

So of course, they didn't go in Jedi robes. They got changed out of those before they left, so that when they arrived in Blue Sector, they were dressed just like any other off-worlder there. Now, Xin, who had in fact been to Blue Sector many times before, was at times apparently oblivious to the fact that the place was a run-down hole which Coronet had filled with the refuse of society. The only thing he could ever say when asked about it was it was a perfectly nice place with very friendly people. Kasra, on the other hand, had never been to Blue Sector before, and was experiencing for the first time exactly how friendly everyone was. Two Twi'lek girls, one blue and one pink, waved to him as they leaned against a wall, wearing clothes so tight and so exposing that despite the fact his eyes immediately jolted up after thoughtlessly running down over their bodies, the image of their smooth stomachs and the curves of their thighs and the swell of their breasts was permanently branded into his mind's eye.

They walked down the street until they found the cantina Xin had in mind. The cantina was lit with a dim red light. As they went in, a boy at the door held out his hand and asked Xin, "Hey, wanna buy some - "

"No." And the two Jedi went on in.

You'll never hear so many languages as you will when you come down to the cantina. There you'll find Rodians, you'll find Nikto, you'll find Selkath and Mon Calamari in a conversation over their drinks; leaning at the bar there is a Twi'lek, and lord of that dark corner over there is a Hutt. When he laid his eyes on that Hutt, Xin turned to Kasra. "I'll deal with this one myself," he said. "He's a lot easier to talk to once you already know him."

"What should I do in the meantime?" Kasra asked him.

"Just enjoy yourself for a while. Have a drink." And with that, Xin walked off towards the Hutt.

Kasra went to the bar, and took a seat next to the Twi'lek, this one with red skin. It was honestly the nearest seat. He only had a glimpse of who was at the bar before he got there, anyway. He ordered a drink, though not really caring what it was he was ordering. It was delivered in only a moment, and he sipped at it while glancing over at the spot where Master Zovo was engaged with the Hutt. It was really just him supervising what was going on over there. Never mind that his line of sight grazed the Twi'lek's face. Oh, why were they all so beautiful? Just ignore how soft her cheek looks. Try to avoid tracing the arch of her nose, down the groove of her philtrum, over her lips. Yes, avoid doing exactly what you're doing now, excellent demonstration. Was she Force-sensitive, or was the motion of his eyes just that obvious to her? She turned her head to look right at him, with an expression that had the Twi'leks any hair, would've involved a raised eyebrow. But she also had a small smile on her lips. "Hi," she said.

"Hi."

"Hi," said the returning Xin. Had he been staring so long? "That went well." He looked as if he was going to continue, but refrained from it, glancing from Kasra back to the Twi'lek, who upon catching his glance, looked back to Kasra before walking away. "Who's she?"

"Oh," said a flustered Kasra, "I dunno. Just being friendly."

"Right. So, the Hutt's told Ang that we're on our way to see him. Which means he and his crew won't shoot us on sight. I've got directions -"

"Sorry, Ang?"

* * *

Karo Ang was the lord of all things illegal in Corellia. And in particular, if there was a crime in Coronet, you could bet Ang knew about it. He was a tall, green-skinned Twi'lek with a reputation for ruthlessness. The directions that the Hutt gave the two Jedi led them to another cantina, which appeared modest at first glance, but upon closer inspection was a little more than a regular old cantina. The first thing that gave that away was the two men at the door, who were much more heavily armed than anyone had a right to be, even in a crime-ridden area like Blue Sector. They stopped the two Jedi at the door, and made a point of doing so in such a way that they took every opportunity to flash their very high-grade blasters to them. Eventually they were allowed in, and were immediately consumed by the pulsations of the bone-buzzing music played in the cantina, which was far larger and more ambitious in its business than your standard cantina. This cantina had two floors, the first floor looking down upon the ground. On the ground floor, there was a large bar in the centre of the room, which was currently very busy serving drinks. Around the walls were many places to sit, and possibly eat, though only very few people were doing that on the ground floor, most engaged in conversations which had to be conducted by shouting over the music. Scattered around the bar were a few stages, upon which were dancing girls, surrounded by enamoured men.

On the second floor were people who looked like they were higher up the food chain than the people on the ground floor. On the second floor were people who were unmistakably wanted criminals, and who were immediately hostile to any outsider drawing near. As the Jedi passed them by, they were followed by unblinking stares. At last they reached a door on the second floor. Near the door were another two guards, but this time they were nodded through without being stopped or checked.

Behind the door was a room where the thumping music of the cantina was muffled, though they could still feel the vibrations beneath their feet if they tried, and the throbbing rhythm which pulsed through the walls was like the sound of a beating heart. In this chamber was Ang. He was accompanied by two Aqualish, two Klatooinians, a few Rodians, humans, and a Dug. Ang was lounging in the centre of the room, sitting as if on a throne.

"Make it snappy boys," he called out with a rolling flourish of his wrist. "What can I do for you?"

The two Jedi made their way to the room's centre, facing Ang. "We're looking for a Mandalorian," said Xin. "An assassin, who we've had a run-in with. We need to know anything you can tell us about him."

Ang said nothing, and stared at the Jedi. "The Mandalorian," he said, nodding his head.

"So you do know him," said Kasra.

"Of course I know him," scoffed Ang, as if it were the dumbest question you could've asked him. "You ever hear of a Mandalorian who wasn't good at killing people? Of course I know him." He reached over for a drink, and sat there drinking, while peering at them from over the rim.

"Great," said Xin after a moment of silence between them. "Do you know where we can find him?"

"Might do. Hard to say."

You see, a man like Karo Ang will never give anybody anything for free. All the better that these two mentioned that he was trying to kill them. The way he saw it, all that meant was that these two idiots had just announced that they were in no position to refuse him. And at that, there was a reaction somewhere in the most ancient folds of his brain, which turned his gaze into an expression of unintelligent malevolence, like the primitive response of a carnivore which catches the scent of blood from an open wound.

"Credits, then," said Xin, casting a cautious glance to the rest of the room.

"Credits," repeated Ang. "Fifteen thousand's my price."

"Fifteen thousand? You're out of your mind!" Kasra told him.

Ang leaned towards them, with a vicious expression on his face, capped with a predatory smile. "I don't think you two are in a position to negotiate right now, are you? If you don't like my price, why don't you go on back home and see how long it takes for him to find you again? Fifteen thousand, and I'll tell you where you can find him."

"Fifteen thousand, and all you do is give us a location, with no guarantee he'll even be there?"

"Think of it like this. Ten thousand for me to even think of selling out you two nobodies to one of the best hired hands in the Core Worlds. Two thousand for me to not have you boys shot where you stand when I realise I heard you right, and three thousand for me to give you his details."

"And if we don't have that many credits on us?"

The room froze for a moment. Ang laughed. He shook his head with a malicious smile crawling across his face. "No," he said. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a blaster pistol, which he set on his knee, levelling the barrel at Xin. "No, you see, you don't understand. Nobody hires the Mandalorian without putting a premium bounty on someone's head. Which means that the moment you walked through that door there, you two had a huge price tag on you paid to whoever brings you in." The two Jedi felt all the focus of the room's stare as he spoke. "If you can't pay us, the Mandalorian's bounty will do just fine."

They froze, the gaze of those three men fixed on each other. Nobody moved.

"Get the speeder ready," he said to the Dug. "You two boys are about to get your wish."

* * *

Xin and Kasra walked with two blasters each aimed at their backs. Ang strode ahead of them with two of his henchmen at his side. They walked into a run-down apartment building, where the sight of blasters pointed at the two Jedi made them invisible to all the world. When Ang locked eyes with any of the staff they deferentially looked to the ground; when the cleaning droids saw him coming they turned around and went the other way and anyone else moved out of the way with the fear of death in them. They went to the elevators, where the Jedi were ushered in separately. They rose up until they reached the seventy-third floor. Ang marched down the corridor until he reached the room at the very end on the left. The Jedi were held back while he pressed a button and spoke into it. Then the door slid open, and Ang went on through.

Xin was familiar with the type of people they were likely to meet in their pursuit, and that kind of person often demands to search any stranger they meet at some point, since by the nature of their lives bloodshed is always around the corner. Earlier that evening, he had the foresight to take two simple blaster pistols, and, passing one to Kasra, the two of them had hidden away something to be found if they were searched at some point. With any luck and a touch of the Force, that would satisfy them, and they would not think to search for such an exotic and small thing as a lightsaber. And in this case it had done exactly that.

Now the Jedi came alive. From the sleeves of their clothes their lightsabers jumped into the palms of their hands, and a green and a violet blade swung around to cut the guns out of the hands of their captors. At the sound of a fight erupting in the corridor, Ang and his two henchmen came back around and upon seeing the glow of two lightsabers they took out their blasters and fired at them. Each of the blaster bolts was deflected with ease, and the last thing upon the faces of the Rodians and the Aqualish thugs they cut down was sheer terror of the unstoppable forces moving towards them to strike them down.

Ang turned to run into the room, firing behind him as he went. The Jedi followed him in. He was alone in the middle of the room, looking around with a desperate expression on his face. As the hum of the lightsabers moved towards him, his eyes grew wider like the shape of his horrified mouth, and he dropped his blaster, overcome by fear, and he raised his shaking palms above his head.

Enter the Mandalorian.

They sensed his presence just before it was too late. The fight had distracted them enough that he went unnoticed until that point. From an adjacent room, he emerged, with no armour on him but his helmet. His figure was heavily muscled, the paragon of warrior physicality, evinced in true Mandalorian fashion by the behemoth of a repeating blaster he wielded in his arms.

The eyes of the Jedi went wide and they leapt for cover just before he fired. The rapid burst of the gun shredded the Twi'lek's flesh. Kasra, who was furthest away from the crime lord, and who was the younger and more agile of the two Jedi, had leapt out of the way and safely got to the doorway where he had cover from the Mandalorian's assault. But Xin was right next to Ang, and he despite being a Jedi Master, it had been a long time since he had the agility of his former Padawan, and though he too leapt out of the way before the Mandalorian fired on them, it was not enough, and the blaster tore through the flesh of his calf, and he collapsed in agony on the floor.

Kasra witnessed Master Zovo fall down with blood spattered around him, and watched as the Mandalorian pulled his gun around for the kill. He raised his hand before the blaster could be fired, and with the Force he pushed the Mandalorian off his feet, throwing him against the wall of the next room.

He followed him through, lightsaber at the ready. The Mandalorian was already back up, and in his hands was his sword. Their blades met each other, this time the Mandalorian gaining the advantage with his sheer strength, which overcame Kasra just enough that the Mandalorian had an opening to lash out with the back of his fist and struck him across the face. Kasra fell to the ground, landing on his back, raising his lightsaber to parry the downward strike and counter with a kick that jolted the assassin back. It brought him enough time to get to his feet before the next strike came at him again, which he again blocked, but was jarred by the power of his opponent.

They fought like brutes, smashing their blades against each other with animalistic force, at each opportunity striking with fist and elbow at the other, hacking at their stance with a sweep of the leg, until finally the skill of the Mandalorian, as great as it was, began to wear against the superior skill of the Jedi in the art of the lightsaber, and with a deft manouevre the blade fell from the assassin's hands onto the floor and the tip of the lightsaber was pointed at his chest.

"Who sent you?" demanded Kasra.

The only sound in the air was the faint panting of the assassin in his helmet and the hum of the lightsaber. And then, slowly, as if disbelief had slowed time's flow to a trickle, Kasra watched as the Mandalorian reached for his belt and drew a dagger. "No!" he said. "It's over. You've -"

But he was silenced by the Mandalorian walking forward, dagger extended in his fist, even as he impaled his own chest on the lightsaber, which cut through his flesh and bone until the tip extended out from his back, and even then the Mandalorian walked forward, until he was halfway along the blade, and made a staggering lunge for Kasra's arm with the blade. The force of his lunge tore the blade of the lightsaber right through him, and as Kasra pulled his arm away the blade slashed right through his ribs.

He collapsed on the floor.

He was dead.


	4. Different Worlds

**Different Worlds**

Kasra turned his head down to the wind. Sand whirled in the air and battered the hood which hung low over his face and the sleeve of the arm he held up as he pushed through the desert squall. But the sand was endless on Tatooine. The dunes rose and fell like the swell of waves in the ocean. Yet oceans are the mothers of life; and the dunes are inherently hostile to life. Over thousands of years the planet's once mighty rock was worn down and crumbled, slowly broken bit by bit, rotting, and ground down into tiny grains, the restless motion of which in the dunes make a habitat where nothing will flourish.

He walked across the Dune Sea towards the afternoon suns. He lowered his head and his arm further to shield his eyes from the harsh sunlight. Slowly he crossed the dunes, footsteps faltering and falling into the flow of the sands, one incorrect step and the sands became like water, and walking up the dunes like walking up a waterfall. One step up and the sand flowed back down again, and his steps were for nothing.

It was verging on the evening when he returned to the small village. There the wind had subsided. Two of the villagers came to see him upon his return, but most of the villagers, if they were out at all, glanced at him with nothing but apathy. When they saw he had returned alone the look on their face was one of exhaustion. They were tired. Of all of it. They looked to his face as he pulled back his hood. But they found no hope there. They looked down to the ground again.

He had been sent to Tatooine to attempt to deal with the conflict between villagers and the Sand People in the Dune Sea. Neither of them would live with the other. Exactly what had started this particular conflict, nobody could remember; it had just been a constant of life for so long nobody cared anymore. Now the Sand People had kidnapped a number of villagers and taken them away into the dunes.

He had gone alone on this mission. Xin was close to death after the encounter with the Mandalorian. His leg had been nearly destroyed by the repeating blaster, and he had lost a large amount of blood. He was recovering on Coruscant, still unconscious by the time Kasra had departed. Although he would live, his leg would never be the same again. The Jedi Council had demanded that Kasra temporarily cease the pursuit of whatever assailants had struck at them from the shadows; they would not let him continue his journey alone.

"I'm sorry," he said to the villagers. "There was nothing I could do."

One of them rolled his eyes. "Of course there wasn't." And he spat at Kasra's feet.

"You could've done what needed to be done. Killed the animals, and put an end to all of this," said the other.

"I'm a Jedi," he said, "we're here to promote peace, not more violence."

"Is that what they teach you?" sneered the first.

"Slaughtering a whole tribe is not the right way."

And the second man: "Where do you think you are? You're not on Coruscant. Why don't you look around you? The rest of us out here have nothing. These people are going to struggle just to stay alive and put food on the table, and now they have to worry about getting killed by uncivilised savages, and you think any of us care about your precious ideas about right and wrong? Why don't you go over to those houses over there and tell them how it is? Go on and tell them that you can't do anything about their dead boy because you don't have the stomach to do what needs to be done to stop all this. Go on." He looked at Kasra with a curled lip of disgust on his face.

"Come on," said the other, and put an arm around his shoulder and steered him gently away.

Kasra stood in silence as he watched the two men leave. They got as far as they could before one embraced the other, whose shoulders trembled with grief.

* * *

He returned to his ship. His ship was a short distance from the village, and he trudged to it with his arm up to shield his face from the gusts of sand which battered him on his way, the winds having picked up again. He got to his ship as quickly as he could and exhaled with relief when the doors closed. He took his cloak off, which dumped a small amount of grains on the floor. Then he went to the cockpit and slumped into the seat, where he sat and rested with his eyes closed.

Until he heard a chirping sound. His eyes opened. The hypertransceiver was beeping. A little red light on it was flashing. He had a new message. He played it.

"I have to admit, I didn't think I would hear from you again. Certainly not so soon. The surprise is more than welcome. The message you left was very vague - although I appreciate that you might not be able to go into detail in just a message left with an assistant - so I'm not sure if I can be of any help to you. But I'll do my best. It isn't every day I get asked for assistance by a Jedi, after all. If you're still on Tatooine, there will be some delay in this message reaching you, but I'll send through my details - when you're back near the Core Worlds, get in contact with me, and we can sort something out. See you then."

He relaxed into his chair again. He wasn't sure that anything would come of this. She wasn't a Jedi. She was just a consultant, as she had put it. But he'd had a feeling. He'd had the feeling that something was wrong with all of this. His former master had been the one for deep meditation much more than he was, but in his absence, he'd had nothing else to go on but his own meditations on the matter. And every time, when he focused his thoughts on Amila, he got the sense of a lurking malevolence.

So he reached out to the only one outside of the Jedi Order who had helped him. Vaia. The woman with the scarred face. It took him a long time to find out how to get in contact with her. Eventually he found something on the HoloNet which looked like contact information, and he had tried it. It had led him to a man who claimed to be an assistant of hers, a man who spoke with a clipped, very posh voice, who rebuffed all his attempts to speak directly to her, quite firmly reminding him that she was a very busy woman, and that it was standard that all communications from people who were not pre-approved by the woman herself would go through him first, and then be relayed to her, and she would then decide when or whether to get back to him. As much as he'd wanted to use the Force to cut through all that nonsense, he felt like doing that would only make the man on the other end lose his job and make Vaia reluctant to help him.

His thoughts came back to Tatooine, to the village and the Sand People. He wished, for a second, that Xin was with him to help him deal with this situation. He certainly didn't know how to deal with it on his own. The villagers were right. The way things were now, with no form of communication between the two groups, this would go on and on until the suns burned out and their bones joined the sand. One side strikes the other, the other side strikes back, neither side strong enough to destroy the other. It was like climbing the dunes, rising up in the sand just to slide down again. On and on, forever.

* * *

Kasra's ship approached Coruscant. The details that Vaia had sent him were directions to a private residence; what he assumed was her home. And upon returning to the Jedi Temple, and a brief explanation of the failure to make progress on Tatooine with the cold reception of the Council, he departed the temple to meet her. The directions took him to an apartment near the very summit of a skyscraper. It had a magnificent view over the city, with such a height that at this hour of the day the sun shone right into the rooms, filling the place with warmth and light.

She came out to meet him right away, with a smile on her lips, and she invited him into her home.

"Nice to see you again," she said.

"Yes, you too."

When they went in she gestured to the sofas. "Please, sit," she said, sitting down on one herself. Kasra took a seat opposite her.

"Now," she said, "Master Jedi," placing her hands on her knees and looking at him. "It occurs you have me at something of a disadvantage. I've invited you into my home, yet I still don't recall ever hearing your name."

Was that right? Come to think of it, it was. In Coronet City she'd left, giving her own name but hadn't got his, and he hadn't left his name with her assistant, just telling him to introduce him as 'the Jedi she met in Coronet.' "Kasra Zhan," he said. "Sorry - it completely slipped my mind."

"Kasra," she repeated. She brought her hands off her knees and clasped them together gently with a smile. "So. Kasra. What would you like to eat? Are you more fond of Corellian or Alderaanian dishes? Your choices are between smoked nerf with charbote root, and roast gorak with malla petals. I think we'll have chimbak wine to drink, and starblossom with both; I'm quite fond of it. And air cakes for later," she added.

His eyes fluttered in rapid surprised blinks. "Oh. Um, I don't mean to be rude of anything - it's just that, ah, I was under the impression that this was more of a meeting to discuss..."

"There's no reason we can't eat as well, is there?"

He was caught quite off guard by all this. A dinner ambush is not something a Jedi was ever trained for. Vaia watched him, smiling as his mouth made shapes which failed to turn into words. "Well ... I suppose not, no," he said at last, to her joy. "But I really don't mind what I eat. Whatever pleases you."

Of course, to a Jedi it was all the same. It makes no difference to a Jedi what he eats. This sort of concern is something a Jedi forgets during his training in the temple.

"If I wanted to please myself, I could do it without you here," she said. "I want you to choose what you want."

He thought of explaining it to her, that a Jedi doesn't have such preferences, but the look in her eye said it was pointless to try. "I'm not sure," he said with a contemplative exhalation, "since typically a Jedi eats much simpler dishes. But - since I haven't been to Alderaan, maybe I should try the roast gorak."

"Perfect," she said. She shot a glance over his head to a droid which stood at the other end of the room, and the droid sprung to action, bustling around the kitchen gathering ingredients.

He'd thought it before, but despite all her scars, Vaia was never the uglier for them. In fact she was quite beautiful. If not by conventional standards. He couldn't say what it was that made him think that. There was no single part of her face that made it so, but there was something about the whole portrait, something about her that drew his eyes over her skin. He wondered what caused those scars on her face, but he thought better of asking.

"Thank you," she said. It was understood, between the two of them.

Kasra smiled at her. "So," he said, changing the unspoken subject, "you have a very nice place for someone who calls herself just a consultant. And I've never heard of a consultant who had an assistant to take all of her communication for her."

"Well, it was the best description of my job. I was very good at making myself a lot of credits when I was younger. Now I just tell other people what to do. Nothing particularly exciting, unfortunately. But anyway - "

Come to think of it, she was a difficult woman to age. She was no longer young, and was older than he was, but the scarring of her face made it difficult to say any more.

"Yes, anyway - I was wondering if you would be able to help me out with the same problem I mentioned to you when we met."

"What kind of help do you need?"

"To be honest, I'm not really sure. I feel like there's more going on, something I'm missing, but I don't know what. Anything you can find out about the missing Jedi, or the missing engineer, I would appreciate."

"I hope you're aware that would be quite an abuse of my power. That's not something a consultant typically does, you know."

"That's not a 'no.'"

A little smirk crossed her face. "If I were to agree, I would need more information than what you've given me so far. I need to know everything you know in order to help you the most I can."

There was a brief moment of hesitation. But when he barely knew anything at all, what harm was there? Besides, she was one of the only people he knew who might be able to help him right now. So he told her everything he knew. She would ask him questions, and probe his thoughts on this and that.

And somehow, the conversation slipped off to run along new tangents. It happened so gradually they were both oblivious to the process; first an odd comment here and there, then a question, a smile, a laugh, and the serious business had been all but forgotten. She wanted to know what it was like as a Jedi, what it was like growing up in the Jedi Temple, all of it. And he told her about how he came to the temple as a child, and trained there until he was taken as a Padawan by a Jedi Knight. He told her about how they had been attacked in Hutt Space by pirates, and how his Master was killed during the raid. He told her how he then met his second Master, Xin, and how he trained under him until he attained the rank of Jedi Knight. And then she wanted to hear all about his journeys across the galaxy.

"You lead an incredibly exciting life, don't you?" she said with a smile as he told her tales of his adventures.

"Oh, please. Jedi Knight was my safety option. You know, what I'd really love to be is a consultant."

She laughed. "Yes, it's a terrible life I lead, being so wealthy I sometimes forget how rich I am."

He just go so caught up in it all. Eventually the outside world stopped existing to him. There was a point where, after she'd got him to talk for a while, he lost track of what he came here for, and told her that he wanted to hear more about her, and they chatted and chatted away, smiling and laughing at each other - and the deeper they sank into conversation the more he felt like he knew exactly what she was going to say, and when he spoke he had the surest feeling, somewhere within him, that she knew just what he had been thinking; it was like he had just met another part of him he just hadn't noticed until now.

They were interrupted by the arrival of the droid with dinner. They moved to the veranda, where the food was set down upon a table. They sat at opposing sides of the table, and the droid left them alone. By now it was evening, and the sun had rolled down below Coruscant's horizon just enough that the sky was a deep golden glow. And the smell of the food was fantastic. Just as Kasra was savouring the scent of the roast gorak, the droid returned with two glasses of the chimbak wine, which mixed perfectly with the food. Sitting there, opposite Vaia, with the evening light bathing the apartment and the smells of the food and the wine filling his head, and the taste of the gorak so soft it melted in his mouth, he didn't think he'd ever felt so at peace and so aware of all his senses.

As good as everything was, it was eaten so slowly, the two of them more intent on devouring each other than their dinner. The conversation never stopped except to take more mouthfuls of starblossom and wine. And when they'd finished their dinner, the droid came over to set down air cakes on the table. And those were good enough to shut the two up for a while.

When at last everything was all eaten and drank, they took to the sofas again, laid themselves down, and talked back and forth, slowly, lazily, while the sky slowly grew darker. If only he could've stayed like that forever.

When he had to leave, Vaia got up to see him to the door, and she leaned on the doorframe, arms folded just below her chest, as he returned to his speeder.

"I promise I won't be so slow to get back to you this time," she murmured.

"I wouldn't mind it if you were," he called back to her. "It'd give me an excuse to come back."

She smiled. "You don't need an excuse."

"Well," he said. "Till I see you next, then."

That night he tried meditating. But all he could think of was her.


	5. The Map

**The Map**

Kasra walked into the vast expanse of the Great Library of the Jedi Temple. The Jedi Archives boasted one of the greatest collections of knowledge in the galaxy. He strode through the main entrance of the Archives to the Third Hall, directly opposite. The Third Hall was the Jedi repository of every piece of information on every known planet in the entirety of the Republic. He took a seat, opposite a bust of the great Nomi Sunrider, and he began his search.

True to her word, it had only been two days before he heard from Vaia again, with news; Luvo, the missing engineer, object of Amila's pursuit, had made journeys to the Empress Teta system shortly before he returned to Vulpter where they both had vanished. What he wanted, neither of them knew, but it was a start. Of course, she refused to share a word of that with him until he agreed to join her for dinner again - lambro shark with bluefruit and kavasa, again with chimbak wine - so he had naturally been doing the best thing for everyone by going over to see her right away, wasn't he? And again, the two had lost themselves in conversation until the sun went down.

The Coruscant of the Deep Core, Empress Teta - formerly Koros Major, renamed after its exalted leader, the great unifier of the star system, who for nearly two centuries ruled just and fair and who repelled the Sith invasion and crushed Naga Sadow on Korriban - was a planet spanned almost entirely by one enormous city, famed as a place where the people of the galaxy of all races lived peacefully side by side. It did business with Corellian Engineering Corps, and New Sun too, but if that had been the purpose of that man's visits, Vaia with her influence would've been able to tell him that, and she had been adamant that there was something else to these visits.

So he browsed through the history of the Empress Teta system, learning what he could in the hope that it would lead him to something more. What could that man have done on Empress Teta that would have drawn Jedi attention to him? And then he read something which caught his attention. His rapid skim-reading slowed to a deliberate crawl over the next words he read.

In Empress Teta's distant history, the star system had been ruled by a notorious cult. The Krath. At first a cult of no significance, founded by nobles Aleema and Satal Keto, the cult drew the attention of the spirit of the dead Sith Lord, Freedon Nadd; from that point, the Krath developed from the pastime of bored and spoiled youths to a cult of full-fledged Sith fanatics. One year after its formation, Aleema and Satal staged a coup, slaughtering all opposition and installing themselves as the new rightful rulers.

In an attempt to destroy the Krath, the Jedi Ulic Qel-Droma infiltrated the cult, but was seduced by the beautiful Aleema. Jealous Satal made an attempt on Qel-Droma's life, which failed and ended in his death, and Qel-Droma took his place as the new warlord of the cult.

But the Krath were not the only ones to draw the attention of that Sith Lord, Freedon Nadd. There was another, whose name might be the most notorious among all the Dark Lords of the Sith - Exar Kun, who reintroduced the galaxy to the fearsome double-bladed lightsaber. He came to view the Krath as a threat to his own supremacy, so he visited Empress Teta and there he confronted Qel-Droma, but instead of destroying each other, the two united, Qel-Droma becoming the apprentice of Exar Kun.

Kasra read down, over a brief discussion of the spiritualism of the Krath, which was vague in detail, and about which he resolved to see if he could find out more in the First Hall, where one could read on philosophy and ancient Jedi teachings, or see if there were holocrons that would tell him what he needed to know - though details on this sort of topic tended to be restricted information, which only Jedi with a certain amount of seniority could access freely; generally, that didn't include him. He'd tried, a lot. After the scanty description of various ancient Sith Lords was the rest of the Krath's history.

The Krath united with the Mandalorians, under the leadership of the great Mandalore the Indomitable, and together they waged war against the Republic. They invaded many worlds in an extraordinarily short space of time, and were known for erecting numerous temples upon the conquered planets.

It went on, into a description of the descent of the Krath, in large part due to infighting, and the defeat of Qel-Droma at the hands of Nomi Sunrider - here he glanced to the bust opposite him, the legendary woman herself watching him as he read - and detailed how the Krath retreated to Korriban, where many of them joined the leagues of the Sith, and there lived out the rest of their days.

As he read these words, he felt a pull within him. A surety that he had at last set his feet down upon the right path. There were still many unresolved aspects of this mystery, but he felt it, the Force told him that it was true, that there was something dark on Empress Teta that lay in wait for him, that there he would find out Amila's fate.

* * *

Xin's leg had healed remarkably well, despite severe damage to the flesh. Kasra was almost certain that his leg would have to be amputated and replaced with a cybernetic one below the knee. Recuperation had served him well. Right now the two Jedi stood on board their ship as the luminous surface of Empress Teta came into view, Xin stretching his newly-healed leg and twisting his foot around this way and that.

"Feeling alright?" asked Kasra, watching the leg.

"Should be fine," Xin said. "Just a bit stiff and tender is all. I'm afraid age is finally starting to catch up with me. Not quite the fighter I used to be."

"Don't worry, you were always terrible. I'll barely notice a change at all."

Xin snorted, and the two took their seats in the cockpit to begin their descent to the planet's surface. Vaia had sent coordinates to Kasra; she had managed to get the details of the ships that were used by the missing engineer to get to Empress Teta, and was able to tell them approximately which part of the planet he landed from. The first two times he had visited the planet, he had landed in roughly the same spot, but the third time he visited he had landed in a very different part of the city, near a discontinued mining operation. That was where they were headed.

While he'd been unconscious, rejuvenating his leg, Xin had missed a bit, and when Kasra mentioned his knowledge of where Luvo had been, he had to ask how he knew that. Kasra told him only briefly of the woman, avoiding any mention of her name, only mentioning that she was a wealthy and well-connected woman, and she seemed to like him well-enough to want to help them out when he'd asked. But his attempt at leaving out most of the story didn't go unnoticed by Xin, and though he didn't push for more, there was a brief look shared between the two of them; the slightly raised eyebrows, and the smallest flicker of a smile on his lips, which told him just how well he knew the man he'd been with more than a decade. There was a long silence between them, where they both felt perfectly understood.

"Just be careful," said Xin, at last.

Kasra said nothing. He looked away and prepared for landing.

* * *

They borrowed two speeder bikes for the trip beyond the city limits and into the rare region of uncivilised land nearby. There was a brief interlude of sorts, between the monolithic spires of the city and the abandoned mines beyond, where there lay a vast expanse of featureless land, which stretched out to touch the horizon in all directions, and as they raced over the flat, barren land, trails of dust tracing out their paths behind them, there in the distance loomed the first of the old, abandoned mining machinery.

Disaster had hounded the mining operation, and it had recently culminated in the deaths of a significant number of the miners. Exactly what had caused it was never made public, but the tragedy caused the mining in the region to be discontinued; at least for the present time, until they could get proper safety measures in place to make sure nothing like that would ever happen again.

But what drew the Jedi to the wasteland was not its history of tragedy. What drew them to the mines was the horrible feeling of darkness that emanated from it. It was enough that when Kasra and Xin stepped off the ship, they were immediately struck by a deep feeling of dread. And somewhere in these mines was its source. And after an hour of searching the desolate land, they arrived at the heart of darkness. The inner station in the mining region, a large amount of dirt and rock had been excavated and a single shadowed entrance underground lay at the very bottom of the pit. This place resonated strong in the Force.

They dismounted their speeder bikes and descended down the pit. They stood at the dark mouth of the underground. "Well," said Kasra, "no point waiting for an invitation, I suppose." And with that, the two Jedi entered the mine.

It was cold and dark. The two reached into their robes and each took out a glowrod. The light from the glowrods illuminated a path which stretched far ahead of them. They followed it as far as it went until they came to a fork in the path. They stood for a while, quiet.

"Do you feel anything?" asked Xin.

"Yes," said Kasra. "From the left. Do you?"

"Yes, I feel the same. Careful. I don't like the presence I feel here."

They went to the left, both a little more aware of their lightsabers than before. The tunnel began to slope down, taking them deeper underground. When the path finally levelled out, they arrived at what would have been another fork, but the right path had collapsed. Large rocks blocked the path entirely. As Kasra examined the fallen rocks Xin felt a drip from above falling on his head. He craned his neck up, looking at the ceiling. A steady trickle of water was falling down on him. Gently pitter-patting on his head. It was the only sound that broke the deathly silence besides the quiet crunching of the dirt underfoot. They went on.

They followed the tunnel along flat ground, until their glowrods shone upon something sitting alone in the tunnel. Dead ahead was an abandoned laser-borer. It looked like it was still in perfect condition. Xin walked on past the borer and raised his glowrod to cast its light further. Here was the end of the tunnel. And there, where this tunnel terminated, was a small hole in the rock. It was a very small hole. Far too small to fit a man if he stood. Maybe enough to fit him if he crawled.

And here it was. The dark energies they both felt had never felt stronger than they did right now. This was it. This was the right place. Without speaking they approached the end of the tunnel, and looked down at the small hole. Kasra got down on his hands and knees and shone the glowrod into the tunnel.

"No end in sight," he said quietly.

Xin gave an exasperated sigh. "Great, this'll be fun."

"How's your leg?" Kasra asked, standing and brushing the dust off his knees. Not that it would matter, before too long. "Fine to go in with me?"

"Don't start all that with me. I'm not that old."

"Just checking." He crouched down again, and he slipped off his cloak, leaving it pooled on the ground by the hole to make it easier to get himself through. "So, I'll go in first, and once I'm through I'll call back to you. Unless this thing goes on for too long, in which case - well, I'll try shouting or something, or I'll come back out and tell you, and we can both go through at once."

Xin nodded and slipped off his own cloak, setting it down near Kasra's. Kasra got down on his stomach and clenched the glowrod in his fist. He pulled himself head and shoulders into the hole. Then he pushed himself forwards with his feet and pulled with his arms, and bit by bit disappeared into the hole. It was a tight fit, and there was barely any room to move besides going forward. He squeezed himself along the rock, which in parts were rough and jagged and grazed harshly against him, nearly drawing blood. He pressed on. He pulled himself bit by agonising bit, until at last the light of his glowrod shone out a small gap in the rocks ahead. Head first, he pulled himself out, and got to his feet.

He stood in a large chamber. Here the walls were not like the rough walls of the tunnels leading to this place, but rather care had been taken to carve out smooth walls for the chamber. In the centre of the chamber, in two rows, were six pillars which went from ground to ceiling. And at the opposite end of the chamber was a dark pyramidal structure, and on the ground in front of it lay a body.

Kasra crouched down to the hole and shouted for Xin to join him, and walked over to the body.

It was Amila. She lay collapsed face down in front of the pyramid, eyes and mouth still open. Her lightsaber lay just out of her reach. There were no blaster or lightsaber wounds on her body.

Kasra turned to the pyramid just as Xin entered the chamber. Xin headed over to Amila's body right away, but then, like Kasra, turned his gaze to the pyramid in front of her. It was a featureless structure. And it was one very strong in the Force.

Xin extended his hand towards the pyramid, stopping short of making physical contact with it. Kasra watched as he focused on the pyramid, fixing it with all his concentration. Yet nothing happened. Kasra reached his own hand out to the pyramid as well, and joined his own abilities with Xin's. And then the pyramid began to move. The very top of the pyramid began to split, and it opened to reveal a small blue light inside, sitting at the peak.

And a voice spoke to them. It was a voice more horrible than any they had ever heard, and it spoke a harsh language neither of them had heard spoken anywhere in the galaxy. It sounded strongly distorted, almost as if heard underwater, and it had a bizarre rhythm that no other language known to them used, as if it were chanting a terrible, hateful verse. They felt its cold vibrations in the marrow of their bones, chilling their skin and making their hair stand on end. They stared at the pyramid.

"What..." Kasra whispered.

Xin was struck with silence. His lips barely moved. "I have no idea..."

And the voice stopped speaking, and from the peak of the pyramid issued forth a beam of blue light, and the light opened up above the pyramid in the shape of a sphere. In the sphere were many more spheres, each of solid white light.

"Is that - is that a map?"

Above the pyramid rose a diagram of a star system. One which Xin, with a good knowledge of the galaxy's star systems, recognised. "The Dathomir system," he mumbled. "What could possibly be in the Dathomir system?"

But as soon as Xin spoke the name of the place, the light sparked violently and died out and the pyramid resealed itself. He laughed in the darkness. "Does this thing hate me?" At that, Kasra gave a sympathetic laugh, and the two looked at each other. Kasra looked back at the pyramid, but Xin stayed looking at him.

"Maybe that's not insane," he said quietly. "It didn't budge when I tried opening it with the Force." Kasra turned to look at him. "Try opening it yourself," said Xin.

Kasra stared at Xin in silence. Then he turned to the pyramid again, and he extended his hand. And the pyramid opened, and the horrible voice resonated in the chamber again. He couldn't believe it at first. "Show us the map," he whispered. And the voice silenced itself, and the map of the Dathomir system rose again. Xin stared at Kasra, his mouth slightly agape in disbelief.

"What lies in Dathomir?" he asked it. And the voice spoke again, in that unintelligible language. "Speak Basic," he told it. The voice paused, but spoke again, in that same dark doxology. He stood in thought for a moment, before he decided on a new command.

"Show me an image of what lies in Dathomir," he demanded.

Then the blue light vanished. And a red light shone from the pyramid, and the image of a crimson pyramid, a dark crystal at its peak, came into view.

"A Sith holocron..." He looked at Xin, who now did not have his attention on the pyramid, but had turned back to Amila, and was crouched down, looking over her. Kasra returned his focus to the pyramid. "Where on Dathomir is the holocron located?" But the pyramid would not show him.

"Kasra," said Xin, still crouching over Amila's body. "Did you see her skin?"

"Yes, why?"

"Properly?"

"What's the matter?"

"Look at her," he said, and pointed. "Her skin is slightly deformed." And as he looked more closely he saw that it was; it was as if she had been burned. "This was Force lightning," said Xin.

Kasra closed the pyramid with a wave of his hand. "I think it's time we report back, don't you?"

"Absolutely."

Xin got to his feet and returned to the entrance of the hole. He pulled himself through, and Kasra followed him. Xin crawled out on the other side and grabbed his cloak as Kasra was pulling himself out of the hole. And they felt it in the Force before they heard them or saw them.

They heard the crunching of footsteps, and from the darkness emerged a gang, each of them with blasters pointed at Xin. About ten of them.

He knew what was coming. His lightsaber leapt into his hand, the green blade lighting up the darkness in the cave. They fired on him, all their blasters at once, but the Jedi Master deflected and avoided every one as naturally as breathing, and he came towards them and brought his blade down on arms and throats, killing one and wounding another, scattering the more cowardly who ran to greater distances to fire on him again.

Kasra leapt out of the hole as quickly as he could, fortunately not taking any blaster fire until he could get to his feet and ignite his own purple blade.

And then his ears were split with an excruciating pain. A sonic screamer tore through his skull, and he hunched over in agony, before remembering the lethal danger he was in. The tunnel itself shook with the vibrations of the sound, dust and rock dropping from the ceiling around him and on his back. He looked up.

Xin had been temporarily incapacitated by the sonic screamer as well. As he swung his lightsaber through the gang, the pain of the sound had shook him. It was only a moment, but it was enough. The rest of the gang, who had almost all of them been wearing helmets or other headpieces which had shielded them from the brunt of the sound, fired on him, and Kasra watched as blaster bolts barraged his oldest friend. Xin's face was a look of shock as his legs, caught by a blaster bolt, gave out and he fell to the ground, and he lay looking at Kasra as the last of the light left his eyes.

Kasra flung three of them back with the Force and rushed towards them, slashing through the throat of the one of them who had no protection from the sonic screamer. Around him was a blur of motion and a deafening ringing noise. He could feel the tunnel begin to quake, and around him larger rocks were falling. The tunnel was collapsing. The gang was running, sprinting for their lives to get out before the collapse. He turned to face his old Master, with a pit of pain in his stomach. But he had no time. A large rock fell from the ceiling, to land right on Xin's body, and Kasra had to hold it from crushing him with the Force. He stood there, holding the falling rocks from his friend's body, even as despair welled up in him and the tunnel came closer to burying him alive.

No physical pain would ever compare to the pain of that decision. He wished with all his heart that Xin would know he was sorry.

He turned from his friend's body and ran out of the crumbling tunnel, stumbling in the dark, as sorrow threatened to swallow him whole. At last the Force guided him through to the light at the end, and he ran out as the mine shook and came down on itself behind him. He looked around him, up at the sides of the pit he was in. There, running up the pit, nearly at the top, was the gang.

He ran after them, and the only thing in his mind then was a great sadness - no, no, it can't end like this, he deserved better, it can't end like this. He can't be shot dead by some young thugs. Please, no. It fueled his legs as he ran to the top of the pit after them, and looked desperately around the barren land to see where they had gone. And there he saw the trail of dust of a speeder as it carried the gang away from him. He looked to their speeder bikes, but they had been destroyed by the gang.

No! No! It would not end like this! At that moment, all the despair inside him mutated, and turned into the blackest rage. He ran after the speeder as it began to fade away, reaching after it with his hand, and he summoned all of that violent rage and hatred inside him.

And the speeder stopped.

And then, despite that the engines were still running, the speeder began to move backwards. The gang turned around, and what they saw struck terror and dread into their souls.

The Jedi marched towards them, even as they were dragged backwards, caught in the deadly undertow of all his hate. They leapt from the speeder and grabbed their weapons and went to fire on him. It was too late for them. The purple blade ignited again and cut through them one by one. A terrified Mon Calamari dropped his blaster and raised his hands in surrender. Kasra drove his lightsaber through his stomach without a thought of mercy. He turned his attention to the last one. A human, running for his life. He reached out with the Force and threw him to the ground. The thug rolled over onto his back, holding his palms up in a pathetic plead for mercy as Kasra closed in on him.

"Please," he begged, "please - I didn't - I didn't mean it - I mean - I didn't - please! Please!"

But they'd deafened him, remember? He couldn't hear him pleading for mercy. Kasra raised his lightsaber and stabbed it through his chest.

* * *

A funeral was held for Jedi Master Xin Zovo at the Jedi Temple. Never had Kasra felt so alone. No matter how many times the other Masters told him that he should not feel sadness over his death, he could never bring himself to do it. It was the hardest Jedi teaching to learn. His dearest friend had been snatched away from him by cruel fate. How could he not miss him? How could he not wish with all he had that things were different? He found advice from Jedi companions and friends, but all their words rang hollow as the hole in his chest.

In his sorrow and loneliness, he found only one true friend who could comfort him. When he told Vaia what had happened, she passed no judgement on him, gave him no advice, but simply embraced him. And the two of them stayed locked in an embrace on her sofa until the sun went down. When he looked up at her, when he looked into her dark eyes, he felt such a closeness to her like he'd never felt before. She ran her hand over his cheek. Her soft, warm palm felt like it fit perfectly against his face.

Before he knew knew what he was doing, he'd done it. He ran his own hand up over her face in kind, feeling the faint bumps of her scars, and then his lips were on hers, for the briefest second of his life, before he pulled away. Her hand on his face gently turned him back to her, their eyes meeting again, as she leaned in and kissed him, and this time he didn't pull away. And they stayed there, together in an embrace, all through the night.


	6. Interlude on the Smuggler's Moon

**Interlude on the Smuggler's Moon**

The ship shuddered violently. Its internal organs shook as it suffered a great shock, and hurtled through the void of space until it was rocked by a sudden impact. Kasra flicked a few switches and looked down to the ship's sensors. Approaching his position - and rapidly - was another ship. It didn't take a genius to see what this was.

Pirates.

"Y9, give me a report on the damage."

"The hyperdrive has suffered severe damage," said Y9 in a humming monotone, "but there is only minor damage elsewhere."

"Is there anything I can use to take cover?" said Kasra in a strained voice, regaining control of the ship just in time to lurch it out of the way of the cannons of the approaching pirate ship. "Give me anything, something that can take us out of the open."

"Debris, recent wreckage of a large ship directly ahead. A warning, attempting to manoeuvre through debris is highly dangerous."

"We'll die for sure if we don't. Might as well take the pirates with us. Ah, yes, now I see -" He was cut off as the ship was jolted by another rough impact of cannon fire connecting with them again. "Y9, take the turrets. Return fire. Buy me enough time to get us closer to the debris." He heard the sound of one of the cannons of the transport (which was slightly - and slightly as in 'slightly illegally' - modified) firing on the pirates, while he brought the ship towards the faint glimmer of space debris in the distance dead ahead.

The transport ducked and wove away from the pirates, who followed them in an old freighter. Fortunately for him, if they had ion cannons on that thing, they either hadn't used them, or hadn't hit their target with those shots yet; by the state of the freighter he could gather from a glimpse, they probably didn't have them at all. These weren't experienced pirates; he could tell that much. These were small-time pirates, probably just looking to take whatever they could.

At last the debris loomed before him. There was a large cylindrical hunk of metal with smaller chunks floating around it just in front of the transport, and he accelerated the ship towards the main cylindrical mess, bringing his ship around it to put something between him and his pursuers, giving them a second's respite from cannon fire. He sent the ship deeper into the wreckage, ruined shards of metal swooping around the ship on all sides, each time narrowly missing by just a sliver less than the one before it. The pirates followed him, deeper into the wreckage, firing as they pursued him. The cannons blasted the moderately-sized pieces of debris into smaller, more rapidly moving ones, which barraged the ship as they pushed through the metal rain to follow them. How fortunate for him to be chased by the stupidest pirates he'd met yet.

"Y9, make sure you don't fire those cannons into the -"

Too late. Good old Y9 fired, right as another chunk of debris flew right in front of the cannon, and the resulting explosion of whatever Y9 just shot turned the interior of the ship a flashing red with blaring sirens to match, and the ship was thrown with enormous force, by sheer luck missing all but the most minor of the debris. Kasra wrestled with the ship to regain control, but to no avail. The ship tumbled wildly through space, making him lurch and smack the side of his head hard enough to make it feel like inside his skull his brain itself was spinning enough to match the world on the outside. He was vaguely aware of the sound of an astromech droid whizzing by behind him to mend what it could of the ship's exterior damage as quickly as it could, before a greater disaster followed their current one.

He flailed his arms about in an attempt to seize the controls, his hands fumbling with them a few times before he finally managed to grip them, and when he managed to focus his vision he saw in front of him a dark but dimly lit planet ahead of him. All that he remembered about what happened next was him taking some very long blinks, at the end of each one the planet growing larger and larger in his eyes. Until the planet was right in front of him, and the transport was still hurtling towards it with no signs of letting up. But wait a second, he thought, through his mental haze, Dathomir didn't look like this, did it?

"Y9," he said, jolting himself awake, forcing his mind to focus on staying awake. "Where are we? What is this planet?"

"This would be a moon," came the voice of Y9. "Nar Shaddaa."

"Oh for -" He held his tongue. Hutt Space! They shouldn't have even been travelling through Hutt Space to get to Dathomir. "They should've named you Y-Bother."

The peaks of the city below him were starting to resolve into separate points, and the ship had only slowed down a small amount, and was overheating something obscene. Just then, the astromech must've finished fixing something, because all of a sudden, the ship became responsive again. He managed to pull the ship up from its nosedive towards the city below them, agonisingly, bit by bit, but they were still coming down too fast, and the tops of the skyscrapers were already rising up to meet them. By now it was too late. This was going to be a crash landing.

The transport plummeted through the city, the buildings shooting up into the sky around them as they flew on by. And then, at last, he saw it. In a building just to his left, an open hangar. He didn't stop to think about it, he just flew on impulse. He jerked the ship with all his might, and the ship aimed itself towards the hangar at a sharp angle, so dangerous an angle of attack he grimaced and braced himself for a violent and fiery death. The ship smashed into the side of the wall, tearing a gaping hole through the left of the ship, and sending it skidding through the hangar with the horrible screech of metal grating on metal, until at last, it came to a halt as it crashed into the rear wall.

* * *

He hadn't stayed with the ship more than a few rapid blinks of the eyes to clear his blurred eyesight after crashing into the hangar. Maybe somewhere else in the galaxy you could emerge from a crashed ship, explain the situation calmly and rationally to a calm and rational person, who would understand that your life was in mortal danger and that you had no other choice, and together you might come to a reasonable understanding. Maybe somewhere else. Not on Nar Shaddaa. As soon as the ship arrived there was a gang of heavily armed thugs heading for the ship. He got out of the ship and ran, as quickly as he could. There was no way he'd have been keeping that ship. If there was one thing that everyone in the galaxy knew about Hutt Space, it was that here there was only one law. In Hutt Space, might does make right.

So it was that Kasra found himself in the streets of the Smuggler's Moon, where layers upon layers of shoddy urban development formed a vertical city, a squalid and decaying Mid Rim Coruscant. Nar Shaddaa was the galactic capital of crime. Spice trading, smuggling, slavery, murder - if you could get away with it anywhere, you could get away with it on Nar Shaddaa, where you were beyond the Republic, beyond all forms of authority apart from the Hutts, and with the Hutts, if it didn't affect them, they didn't see it.

He'd taken the extra safety measure of dressing in inconspicuous dark clothes, which let him pass unidentified as a Jedi as he walked through the shady streets of the city. He walked by a trio of Aqualish thugs eyeing him up, walked by a dark alley from which came the sounds of a Gank gang bashing someone's face in, walked by a too-slick looking human spice dealer leaning on a dirty wall, until at last he came to a dimly-lit sign that caught his eye: 'Rax's Parts: Starships and Droids.'

Rax was a tall, fat Rybet, an amphibian species with bulging, beady eyes which locked on Kasra from the moment he entered the shop. Rax stood behind the counter, wearing only a brown pair of pants with a small pouch hanging off his hip. "What you want!" he shouted with all his best salesmanship.

"I'm looking for a way to get off this moon," said Kasra. "You were the closest thing I could see to someone who might know of a way to do that."

"You have a ship?" he shouted, spit flying out of his mouth.

"I had a ship. It's beyond repair, at this point. I was hoping you could direct me to someone who could help me get off the planet."

"If you don't have, then why come to see ship parts? Read the sign! Starships and Droids!" His long tongue smacked at his face around his slobbering mouth, and he mumbled something in another language Kasra could only assume was a crude insult.

Kasra gathered his patience, and prepared to explain once more what he came in this shop for, but something interrupted him. What precious light there was in the shop came down from the roof and glanced off the coating of a droid, sitting on a nearby table. A droid of exceptionally curious design. He turned away from Rax, and walked towards the droid. "Where did you get this droid?" he asked.

Rax barked a sound of disdain. "Service droid! You want? Ten thousand credits! Very good deal!"

Kasra didn't bother to respond to him right away. He walked towards the droid, until he was right in front of it. It had a humanoid appearance, though it was damaged and dirtied. But this was not a service droid. To him, the design was unmistakable. This was the design of a Krath war droid. This droid bore all the distinctive signs of the droids which terrorised and slaughtered the Jedi so long ago. It was all there; the armour plating, decorated in its scratches, gyro-balance assembly, and the limbs which were designed in a way much better suited to lethal combat than to any kind of peaceful servitude. Yet doubt still remained in his mind. The Krath had long since been eradicated, and their war droids with them. How unlikely it was that one would have endured this long, especially on a place as dangerous as the lawless Nar Shaddaa.

"A service droid?" said Kasra, turning around to look at Rax. "Where did you get it?"

"Who care where it come from! You going to buy, or stare at it?"

Kasra turned back to the droid and examined it more closely. "It's been modified quite a bit, by the look of it," he said to himself.

Rax overheard his comment, though he misunderstood its meaning. "Strange design for a service droid, but he get the job done. Clever one, for a service droid."

Clever? Interesting. According to all the history he'd read, the Krath war droids had only a very crude intelligence, designed to do nothing more than identify and eliminate threats. They were cheap, so the strategy was to use them in large numbers to overwhelm the enemy. Intelligence had never been a priority. "It's clever?" he asked in a sceptical tone.

The voice that responded was high, and electronic. "You're right to be wary of his ability to judge intelligence," said the droid from behind him. "But I can assure you, my cognitive abilities are vastly superior to those of the average service droid."

Rax sneered at the droid. He started walking over, but Kasra held up his hand. "No, it's fine," he said. "You have my interest." He leaned closer to the droid, and spoke in a low voice, low enough that he hoped Rax couldn't hear him. "Are you really a service droid?"

The droid paused. "That depends . . . on the service you want performed."

"For example?"

"For example, I would be more at home making roast meat with a flamethrower than in the kitchen."

Kasra straightened up, with a slow smile crawling over his face. "I'll buy it," he said, and Rax barely held his tongue in shock. "On the condition," he continued, "that you tell me what I came in for in the first place. I need a way off this moon, and I need you to tell me where I can find people who can get me out of here."

"Ya, whatever!" he shouted, while waving his arms furiously to hurry him over to pay the credits. "I give you contact for a guy in Red Sector, smuggler, and he have job. If he don't want you, not my problem. No refunds!"

* * *

Z3 (which was 'Zee-three,' and not 'Zed-three' as the droid adamantly insisted) accompanied the Jedi through the city until they found transport to Red Sector. As Kasra had found out on Corellia, and as was about to be demonstrated on Nar Shaddaa, parts of cities referred to just by colours frequently turned out to be bad news. If anyone thought Coronet City's Blue Sector was a degenerate hole, let them come to the glory that was Nar Shaddaa's Red Sector.

"And what is it you seek on Dathomir?" asked Z3.

"A Sith holocron, probably. Though I have no idea how to find it."

"Might I remind you, that Dathomir is famous for being home to the rancor."

"I'd be fine if you didn't remind me, actually. Besides, we're not going to Dathomir anyway. Not right away, at least. We'd have no way to get off. We're going back to some other planet, where I can find transport of my own. And - here we are."

Right ahead of them was just the place they were looking for. A club, where they would find the Hutt smuggler by the name of Jargo. The club enforced a strict no-droid policy, which meant that Z3 was left waiting outside, and Kasra went in alone.

The club was vibrant with life. The floor was filled with people drinking, dancing, talking, and with their hands all over each other. There were more than a few people that Kasra could immediately pick out as being under the influence of some kind of spice. There were dancers, placed all around the floor, each attracting their own happy crowd. He noticed as well that near each door were a couple of dangerous looking men, each of them acting casually, but they were unmistakably armed and keen to kill or severely wound at the first sign of trouble.

He made his way to the bar and spoke to one of the bartenders. "I need to speak with Jargo," he shouted over the din. "Rax sent me. I'm looking for a job."

The bartender waved his hand to someone in the distance, and jerked his head towards Kasra. Then he turned back to him and said, "Up the stairs over there," and turned to another waiting customer.

When he reached the stairs, two men stared at him, a Gank and a mean-looking human, but he paid them no mind. He went up, past an Ubese who shoved him aside as he or she went down. And there, on the next floor, lounged the Hutt.

Two men were on him as soon as he laid eyes on the Hutt, patting him down until they were satisfied he had nothing on him - wrong, of course, but that didn't bother him. Satisfied, he was allowed to approach the Hutt, who was leering hideously at a nearly-naked human girl at his side. Kasra kept his eyes on the Hutt until finally the Hutt saw fit to turn his attention to the new arrival.

Jargo looked him up and down, and then started to laugh. "Ho ho," went his laugh. He spoke in Huttese, and everyone around him laughed with him. A masked man by the Hutt's side spoke in Basic.

"What could someone like you possibly offer us?" he said.

"Tell the Hutt Rax sent me. I want to know if he's got any smuggling jobs headed for the Core Worlds. I need to get back there, and in exchange I'll do whatever it is he needs doing."

The Hutt spoke again with a voice of contempt. "He says," said the translator, "that he has half a mind to kill Rax unless he sees the payment he is owed, and quickly."

"That's nice, but I was asking about smuggling, does he have half a mind to give me a job?"

That got some ugly faces thrown his way. The Hutt laughed. "He says," said the translator, "that you'd better watch your tongue, in case you lose it." Kasra remained silent, standing there in front of Jargo, while the girl took some food from a nearby platter and dropped it into his gaping mouth. Then the Hutt spoke again. And the translator said, "Do you have your own blasters?"

"No," said Kasra, "I lost them recently."

The Hutt rolled his eyes and then spoke again. "Can you shoot? And will you shoot?"

"Yes."

"Will you ask questions?"

"Couldn't care less what you're smuggling."

There was a period of deliberation, before the Hutt finally waved his arm. "Fine," said the translator. "First thing tomorrow morning, you'll be here or you'll be left behind. You'll be with us till Corellia, and then you'll get your payment. Now get out."

Kasra left, back down the stairs, shoved aside by someone coming up the stairs this time. He walked through the club, heading right through the busy centre of the club, when he felt two hands latch onto his arm from behind. He turned around, just as the face of a Twi'lek woman pressed against his, and she pulled him into a kiss. He felt an electric tingle in his lips as hers locked with his, excitement which was matched by the pleasure he felt in his fingertips as they lightly grazed over the soft, naked curve of her hip, sparks which shot down his spine, and then were all too quickly gone when the spiced-up girl pulled away from him with a loud cheer, and threw herself at another man to his right.

He was left standing there, while his fingers imagined the feel of her skin after she was gone.

* * *

First thing the next morning he joined Jargo's gang through a series of passageways which led to a hangar near the club. Time was limited. Crates needed to be loaded into a freighter. Two crates each minute, then they were out. Nobody knew what the hurry was, and nobody asked. Z3 had been brought with Kasra, to the initial objection of the rest of the crew, until they sung a different tune when they saw him demonstrate strength far beyond what his design suggested, lifting whole crates by himself and saving the crew a lot of work.

They loaded up the last of the crates, and then got themselves on the ship. When the last man was on board, he had ten seconds to find his place before the ship was speeding out of the hangar, aiming up to the sky, racing up the sides of the skyscrapers of Nar Shaddaa until it reached the open atmosphere above, and then it was out free into the expanse of space. The pilot and the copilot flicked a few switches, and then reached up to pull a lever, and they all watched the stars shoot by them as they disappeared into hyperspace.

Or so they would have, had things gone their way.

The interlude on Nar Shaddaa ended the way it began: the ship rocked violently with a sudden impact, and was sent careening through the emptiness of space. When the ship finally stabilised, a large, black ship loomed over them. The interior of the ship went dark.

"They've hit us with ion cannons," said one of the smugglers.

Someone swore.

Then the freighter began to crawl slowly towards the black ship.

"Blasters out, boys. We're about to be boarded."


	7. Destination Dathomir

**Destination Dathomir**

The smugglers' freighter was pulled into the docking bay of the dread-black cruiser. The doors sealed themselves shut. On board the freighter, the power was out, and the smugglers gathered themselves into two rows in the dark, blasters at the ready; aimed and ready to fire. There they waited, poised. Ready.

There was a crack of light as the freighter was forced open externally. The smugglers fired down the loading ramp in a deafening storm. No fire was returned. The smugglers ceased their shooting, and paused to look. A thick cloud of smoke obscured their view. They waited, and then they heard something. They heard it just in time for an instinct to activate in some of them which told them to move out of the way. The sound of a boot shifting into place on the floor. Then from below, came the retaliation. A gentle lob of a frag grenade into their midst.

An explosion sent the smugglers flying, killing all those who had failed to move out of the way in time. Then came the boarding. The small remainder of the smugglers were scattered and disorganised, and they were quickly shot dead. Kasra picked up his blaster and looked around him for some kind of support, but found only corpses, and a damaged and disabled Z3. Well, it wouldn't matter if they found out he was a Jedi now, would it? His lightsaber shot out of his sleeve and into his hand, and he ignited it, a lone, purple glow in the darkness of the freighter.

The men gathered around him, visible as three dark shapes against the light flowing in from the docking bay. The men held their blasters at the ready. Kasra shifted his weight, ready to cut them down.

The scene was interrupted by the sound of light footsteps echoing in the docking bay, approaching the ship. And as they clicked up the loading ramp, he saw the footsteps wore a familiar face.

It was Vaia.

* * *

The two of them were left alone in the darkness of the freighter. Vaia stood in the dim secondhand light, her scars casting faint shadows on her face, her long hair worn loose, and as it fell down her shoulders it melted into the dark clothes she wore. Kasra stood in the darkness opposite her.

"What's going on here?" he said, the embodiment of utmost bewilderment and shock.

"That's no way to thank me, is it?"

"Thank you? What am I thanking you for?" And then something clicked in his mind. "Wait - were you following me?"

"I wanted to keep an eye on -"

"You can't just follow me across the galaxy! This is dangerous! You could get yourself killed!"

Vaia tilted her head to the side in a mocking expression. "In case you didn't notice, I'm more than capable of handling myself, thank you for your concern. Besides, disaster will find one travelling to Dathomir by himself much faster than it will find me. Let alone the circumstances."

He was aware of that. He'd asked the Jedi Council to send him alone anyway. He didn't tell her that.

So many questions were on his lips at that moment - How did you find me? How did she have a ship like this? Who is she? - that when he tried to articulate them all that came out was an incoherent babble. He took a breath and tried again. "Who are you, really?"

"I told you," she began, but he cut her off.

"A consultant. The first consultant I've ever heard of who flies into Hutt Space on a whim and attacks a crime lord's smugglers. Is that it?"

"I told you," she said as if he hadn't spoken, "in my youth I made myself a lot of credits. A ship like this is one of the ways in which I chose to indulge myself."

There was a whole lot more that she wasn't telling him, but he let it go. For now. "How did you find me?" he asked her. "How did you know I'd be on Nar Shaddaa, of all places?"

"I had your ship tracked," she said, with some hesitance. "I could see you ran into trouble. I thought I'd bring help."

Kasra's mouth popped slightly agape for a second. "Are you aware that I'm a Jedi? And - hold on, how did you find me after my ship was totalled?"

"I pulled some strings on Nar Shaddaa. I had an eye or two kept on you." With that, she turned from Kasra. "Regardless of how we got here, here we are. You're welcome." And she walked off the freighter and into the docking bay of her cruiser.

Hold on. Kasra marched after her, out of the freighter and caught up to her until he was striding alongside her. "Vaia, do you realise what you've just got yourself into? You've attacked a Hutt smuggling operation, and killed the entire crew - "

To his astonishment, she cut him off with a laugh. "Smugglers," she repeated, never breaking her stride, contempt dripping from her lips. "You were only carrying spice on that freighter, but make no mistake about the people you were dealing with. Those people were not just smugglers, they were slavers. I gave them what they deserved."

Slavers - funny how a single word so drastically altered his opinion of what had just happened. A Jedi did not hate, but if they did, he'd hate slavers. No other crime disgusted him like that one. But - "Even so," he said, "Jedi have died on this journey. I won't lead you into danger."

"You won't. I'm leading you to it."

He sighed in exasperation, and Vaia stopped, and turned to lock eyes with him. "I appreciate your concern," she said, with a seriousness giving weight to her voice. "I'm not disregarding your words. I'm aware of the danger in this. But you have to trust me when I say I'm capable of taking care of myself." She took a step closer to him. He noticed her faint scent in the air. "Besides, you're on my ship now. You've got no way of getting rid of me now," she added with a smile.

Kasra looked down and laughed. What had he got himself into?

"I had the fear," said Vaia, quietly, just close enough that he imagined he could feel the warm, soft vibrations of her words on the bare skin of his neck, "when I saw you attacked in Hutt Space, that fate was playing a cruel joke. I would've come anyway, but - I thought you might be in need of a helping hand, especially now."

"The same thought did cross my mind." Exactly the same thought; he'd had the fleeting thought that fate had decided to punctuate the end of the play with rhyming couplets, that his past would become his future and he would be delivered to the same end his Master met so many years ago. He had told Vaia the story at their first dinner, where she had taken a devoted interest in his life as a Jedi. He had told her that they had been just about to return to Coruscant from a mission in Hutt Space, when they had been set upon by pirates. There was no reason for the attack they ever knew. The pirates boarded their ship, and started shooting. The two of them fought the pirates, and managed to hold their ground, but the pirates boarded in such numbers that eventually they were overwhelmed, and his Master was shot dead, while Kasra managed to slay the last of them. "And - thank you. For being a friend to me."

She reached out with her hand, and interlaced her fingers with his, and traced the outline of the veins in his hand with her thumb. The tips of her fingers, which peeked out from between his own, ran up and down the soft spaces between the bones of his hand. Her eyes were on his as she drew ever nearer, as her hand brought his hand closer to her body, until he felt the gentle swell of her hip press into his palm. Her breath was on his neck, and her arm snaked over his shoulder and her fingers meshed with his hair, pulling him down to her. He felt the jolt as his back was pressed up against the wall as she kissed him. And in that moment he was overcome by passion; his free hand grabbed her hair, his fingers pressed into her hip, then moved around, his hand pressing into the arch of her back and pulling her body close to his as their lips disentangled and he felt the heat of her breath against the lobe of his ear, sending shivers of pleasure through his scalp and down the nape of his neck.

Then something righted itself in his brain, and he turned away. He calmed his lustful hands, and looked down at her shoulder, avoiding her direct gaze. "I'm a Jedi," was all he said.

Vaia's lips grazed his skin as she murmured. "I don't care."

He tried to pull himself away - in vain; something would not let him do it; he felt an incredible force pulling him to her. "I shouldn't -"

"You don't need to be a Jedi with me. I don't want a Jedi. I want you." She punctuated each word with a kiss. "Just. Be. Yourself." Three kisses, across his cheek, until the two of them were face to face, sharing the same breath. She spoke in the barest whisper. "What do you want?"

* * *

The second they were in her private chambers, he hoisted her into the air, his hands gripping the undersides of her thighs. She wrapped her legs around him, and the two fell onto her bed. They tore at each other's clothes, and then animal instinct took over. He felt as though something that was caged within him was finally free. And its appetite was ravenous.

They lay with each other for a long time afterwards. Her leg was cast over his body and her breasts pressed lightly against his chest. He could feel the gentle rise and fall of her stomach with each breath. He ran his fingers all over her skin. Through her hair. Over her face. He held her close. He felt at peace.

He felt happy.

* * *

Vaia had Z3 seen to by her best technician. Then the smugglers and their freighter were dealt with, and the cruiser charted a course for Dathomir.

The two spent every moment they had with each other. Just talking. Talking about nothing at all, letting the conversation flow as it wanted to. In that too-brief journey through hyperspace he chose to forget about being a Jedi for a while. He just - was. Instead of freeing himself from attachment, he embraced it. It was the easiest thing in the world, too - to lie in bed with her, in an impenetrable cocoon of whispers which shielded them from the outside world, the two of them getting to know each other inside and out. And when she whispered, he would listen to her words as much as he listened to the rhythmic sounds her lips made as they moved. If only the journey had lasted forever. If they had got lost in hyperspace and left the rest of the galaxy behind he wouldn't have cared at all.

"I was - I suppose you would say I was 'rather poor' as a child. I know the Jedi say they aim to live a life of simplicity, but at the end of the day, you all have the safety of the Jedi Temple, knowing that everything's taken care of. It isn't real for you. True poverty is quite different. I remember deciding as a child that I would not live like this. I made the decision that I was going to improve my life, that I would find a way to move the stars themselves if that was what it took. And I did. I devoted myself to that idea, that I would not continue living in misery, that I would struggle as much as I needed to, until I could reach out and take the life I wanted. Eventually I managed to work my way into a small business, and then I became a bit more successful, and a bit more, and a bit more, and then when I turned around and looked behind me I saw that I'd climbed a small mountain. And now, many years later, I only work because I enjoy it."

"I really admire you, you know." He snuggled in closer to her, their noses touching. "Has anyone ever told you that you have an adorable nose?" She giggled, and then the two of them were a pair of giggling idiots together, while he playfully bit the end of her nose. Then they kissed each other again.

"I can't remember the last time I had a moment as perfect as this."

"Mmm." She nestled close against him and closed her eyes. She rested her palm on his chest. "So you don't regret this. I'm happy."

He knew he should. He knew what he had done - and his entire relationship with her - was against the Jedi Code, but he didn't. "No," he said. "Lately I haven't been a very good Jedi, and I've done more than my fair share of things I should regret, but this wasn't - you aren't - one of them. I don't know how I can ever tell you how much your friendship has meant to me lately."

"You don't think you're a very good Jedi?" He could feel her smile against his skin.

"I don't think it's a story you'd like to hear."

"Oh, don't be so dramatic. I've already told you, whether you're a good or a bad Jedi doesn't matter to me. I like you because you're you."

When she spoke, somehow he could feel the sincerity in her words. Maybe it was just the heat of the moment, the intensity of intimacy which he'd never felt before, but he felt right then as if he could tell her anything and she would accept him just the same. Yet he still felt the lingering fear of putting that hypothesis to the test.

"I've done too many things a Jedi shouldn't do," he continued. He looked down at her, into her dark, deep eyes. "Mainly, things to do with a lack of control of my own emotions, as I'm sure you could've guessed." They both laughed quietly, and it helped to ease the tension in him.

"I . . . when my Master died - when he was killed, by that gang, like I told you, I'd never felt such anger in my life. It was beyond anger. Hate. Hatred - it was all I could feel. I always thought the idea of being able to feel an emotion in every single cell of your body was a silly notion, but I felt every single part of me hot with the most intense hate. It was like there was so much hate in me at that moment my body was barely enough to contain it. And they were going to get away with it. They were just going to kill the best friend I'd ever had and - and they were just running away like it was nothing. And - and . . . I made sure that didn't happen."

"You killed them?" she asked.

He nodded. "Yes. I regret it. Immensely. But I don't know if I could ever do things differently. I was so furious. It was like he was nothing to them. They'd just killed him without a thought in the world. I couldn't control myself, I was so angry and sad, I -"

Vaia stared at him. When she spoke, her voice was firm with conviction.

"Good."

For a second he couldn't believe his ears. He had braced himself for her horror, her disgust, her reproach. And here she was giving - of all things - what sounded like approval. The overwhelming relief he felt was mixed with confusion. He shook his head. "No. All life should be valued. Revenge isn't the right way. It's just the most tempting."

"Valuing life is not the same as preserving it at all costs, and misplaced mercy is a dangerous thing. You lost your best friend to a gang of cruel thugs. Had you given them the chance, wouldn't they have killed you too? Wouldn't they have done the same to others? Tell me, if those of them that begged you for mercy had stayed and shot at you or tried to blow you up, would you feel guilt about killing them?"

His eyes widened so slightly a less-sharp eye than hers might have missed it. But she saw his reaction, and he knew it. "How did you know that?"

"I didn't, until just now. And of course you wouldn't feel guilt. But isn't the man who begs for mercy still the same man who tried to kill you, and the man who would do the same to others if you let him live? And out there in the mines with so many of them and one of you, how would you have had any other options?"

"I should give him mercy because it isn't right to deny him the chance to change. If I do that, it's nothing but revenge."

"Mercy is only a good thing when you are willing to consider an alternative. Otherwise, it has no meaning. When you give mercy, give mercy because you believe it is the best thing to do. And when you feel guilt, make sure you feel guilt because you believe you did the wrong thing. Not because you are told you did."

She traced her index finger over his cheek, up over the bridge of his nose and down onto the other cheek. "Am I making any sort of sense to you? I hated seeing how hurt you were after your loss. I don't want you to hurt yourself any more."

He took her hand in his and kissed it. There was a feeling in his chest, a lightness and warmth at receiving acceptance when he'd expected rejection. A comforting feeling.

One he didn't want to name, because he knew it was strictly forbidden.

* * *

Dathomir was beautiful. Wild. Untamed. An unexplored frontier of lush forests, tall mountains and deep blue seas; long elegant rivers and wide treacherous canyons. Kasra and Vaia looked down at the planet from the cruiser. Z3 stood behind them in silence.

"So," said Vaia. "Where do you intend to look?"

"I've given it some thought. Only a very small minority of the planet is thought to be inhabited by sentients. It makes sense to start there. The trick is getting to them without attracting the attention of the rancors. I'll take Z3 with me. I want you to stay with the ship." Before she could say anything, he explained. "We don't know what we're going to find down there. Just - don't make me fear for your safety any more than I have to. Please."

She deliberated, and then nodded her head in assent. "Okay," she said. "You know how to contact me. Make sure you do, if you're in trouble. And make sure to give me frequent updates, for your own safety."

"I will."

The Jedi and the droid took a shuttle down to Dathomir's surface. The shuttle headed near the coastline where it was thought that a few crude settlements may have formed. Due to their mysterious nature, the shuttle would remain at a safe distance, while Kasra and Z3 would approach the sites alone. They landed just beyond the edge of a dark forest. The pilot and the two other crew members remained with the shuttle, while the duo set out into the forest.

The trees of the forest towered over them, and the shuttle quickly vanished behind them. Z3 estimated the tallest of the trees to be roughly eighty metres. They were vast things. Their trunks were enormous, and the densely leaved branches created a thick canopy above them through only thin beams of faint light could penetrate and trickle down to the undergrowth.

Kasra hadn't had much time to ask Z3 about his history, what with smuggling and getting attacked in space and all that, but now that they had nothing to do but march through the forest, he thought now was as good a time as he was going to get. So he asked, and Z3 told him; about his earliest memories, of being employed by the Krath to assassinate Jedi, which he spoke of with something very close to pride, considering he was a droid. He'd personally delivered the killing strike to no less than three Jedi on Deneba. The Jedi were able to survive their attack, but he managed to survive the conflict and escape, eventually returning to Empress Teta, where he would serve under the Dark Lord Exar Kun.

"You served under Exar Kun himself?" interjected Kasra. "What was he like?"

"He was . . . a magnificent example of a sentient."

"Interesting summary. Not many people would agree with you there."

"I would tell them that greatness takes many forms. In that man, extraordinary ambition met extraordinary talent. He was the one man I have ever met who answered to nothing and nobody but himself. He was like a force of nature."

There was a brief pause, and then Z3 spoke about how he wound up on Raxus Prime after the defeat of the Krath, where he was subject to the tinkering of one of the strange creatures living there, whom he had to thank for installing him with a greatly enhanced cognitive matrix. He lived in the wasteland of Raxus Prime for many decades, until he escaped as a stowaway on a ship which took him to Sharlissia, and he lived there until he was disabled in a violent fight. The next thing he knew, he was on Nar Shaddaa. And now, here he was on Dathomir.

Together the intrepid two pressed onward, and further onward, through the tangled forest, forging their own path through the darkness. They pushed upwards to higher ground, until they found themselves on the head of a mighty cliff which overlooked the turbulent sea. Thick grey clouds were rolling in from the distant horizon. Rain would come. They headed back down the cliff, down the other side, and they followed the coastline. The skies darkened. Rain began to fall.

"Master," said Z3, "it may be wise to turn back now, and return when the weather is more favourable. The dangers of this planet are largely unknown."

Kasra halted his stride. He took a deep breath. He could feel something in the air. Like a weight. "No," he said. "We go on."

"It would be wiser," started Z3, but Kasra cut him off.

"We're close." Kasra strode forwards, while Z3 followed him a few steps behind.

But then the Jedi stopped. There was something - something he could feel, a presence. It descended down on them like a fog. "Z3," he said, turning to the droid, "be -"

Before he could finish, there was a ripple in the Force, and Z3 was thrown into the trunk of a distant tree with a hard impact, and he collapsed on the ground. Kasra ignited his lightsaber. The violet blade hissed and steamed in the rain. A thin beam of light surrounded by a purple haze.

And then, from the shadows, two men emerged. Two hooded figures, in dark cloaks. One in front of him, and one to his right. They unclipped two lightsabers from their belts. And two red blades joined his own in the heavy rain.

And they howled. They screamed and they wailed like animals, and they leapt at him, and he only narrowly parried their strikes and moved himself to a better positioning before they could cut him in two. They came at him like savages, with wild, furious slashes and stabs, driven solely by a primal bloodlust. He blocked and wove carefully, to make it difficult for both opponents to attack him at once. He caught one of them in a poor position, and struck his inexperienced enemy's face with an elbow, while pushing the other with the Force off his feet, knocking his lightsaber out of his hand. The time it took him to remove the second gave the first the opening to retaliate, and with a guttural screech he brought his lightsaber down in a beheading arc which Kasra just blocked before it made contact, but the impact of the strike buckled his leg and brought him down to one knee, holding off the red blade with all his might.

There came a rumbling sound. And out of the darkness hurtled a humanoid shape at incredible speed, which came crashing into the hooded figure and slammed them both into a tree trunk with such strength the tree shook. Kasra turned his head to follow the shape.

Z3 stood gripping the hooded figure, holding his lightsaber arm up above their heads, with a blade extended from his left arm buried in the man's stomach. The second man rose, and Z3's head turned sharply to lock onto him. He retracted the blade as the second man came forwards, and seized the man he'd just impaled, and flung him through the air at his new target. The two crashed into each other and fell to the ground.

"Thank you, Z3," said a breathless Kasra.

"Most welcome," said the war droid. "I have a knack for extermination."

The two dark-robed men rose again, one clutching his side where Z3 had impaled him, staggering as he raised his lightsaber in his doubled over stance.

They faced down each other, frozen for a second in the pouring rain, on one side two red blades, their heat turning the falling raindrops to steam, and their bright red glow bleeding into the fine mist around them; on the other side a bright purple blade and a Krath war droid, the rest of its kind long extinct, crouching in the dirt, locked onto its target, every part in place, ready to kill.

The moment was over, and they came at each other, purple lightsaber meeting red, and red meeting the droid's blade. They fought with vicious inelegance. For a moment, they were evenly matched. But one mistake was all that was needed. The exhaustion and pain that hounded the man with the stabbed stomach overcame him, and his guard faltered. Z3 punished the mistake instantly. He smashed through his guard with superior force and knocked the lightsaber out of his enemy's hand, and without a moment's hesitation drove his blade through his enemy's chest.

Kasra fought the other with the advantage of expertise. He was the more accomplished swordsman of the two, and as the fight went on and as fatigue set in, it became inescapably obvious that he was the one controlling the flow of the battle. When his companion went down, and when he felt Z3 turn his attention to him, the brief lapse in concentration was all that Kasra needed. With a swift motion his lightsaber flicked out and sliced through the flesh of his arm, and then came back around to sever his left hand.

The man screamed in pain and fell to the ground with Kasra's lightsaber at his throat. Shortly joined by the tip of Z3's blade pointed at his forehead.

"Care to introduce yourself?" Kasra said off-handedly.

The man gasped and panted in agony, clutching the stump of his wrist. "You have no idea - you have no idea what you're dealing with," he spat at the Jedi.

"Enlighten me."

The crunching of twigs underfoot interrupted them. Out from the midst of the trees arrived three more figures. In the centre there was an old, bearded man, and at his flank were two younger men. They were sallow-skinned and thin men whose eyes looked too large for their skulls.

"He will not speak to you," said the old man.

"And who are you?" asked Kasra, while Z3 turned to face them, blade at the ready.

"This is our land," he said. Then, to the two men: "Take the traitor."

His command was answered by a horrific roar. "Quick. Before the rancor comes."

The two men drew blasters and approached the wounded man. They looked at Kasra and Z3 expectantly. "If you want to live, you need to make a decision," said the old man. "Come with us, or return to where you came from. We'll deal with him."

"No, you don't understand, I need him. He -"

"Then you'll come with us. Quick," urged the man, and the two younger men moved past the Jedi and the droid to confiscate his lightsaber and take the cloaked figure's arms behind his back and bind them, and hauled him through the trees.

Kasra and Z3 stood in the rain, watching them leave. The rancor roared again. Closer.

"I hate this planet already," said Z3.

They followed.


	8. Fear

**Fear**

He and Z3 followed the men. They trekked through the murky wet darkness, surrounded by the gentle whispering of the falling rain and the pitter-patter as it splashed on the leaves, the chorus of insects of the night, and the faint occasional screeches of beasts more fearsome yet in the distant shadows. The men would crouch and check fearfully around themselves, holding their captive silent and remaining still as statues while they listened for the gentlest disturbance, and then, finally satisfied, would press on until they repeated the same just a short distance ahead.

In the end, it was only a short distance to their destination, but it felt longer than all the distance he'd covered before it. It was tucked away on the side of a craggy hill, nearly impossible to see from the sky. It was tiny. There couldn't be more than a couple hundred people living there in total. It was a crude village, with nothing more than the bare essentials but for a few old weapons with which to defend themselves. There were two turrets partially shielded by rocks, but one of them was so badly damaged it was certainly inoperable. Between the turrets were basic gates, which opened up to let them in, and closed immediately behind them.

When the village awoke to the arrival of the three men and the captive with the severed hand they brought with them, Kasra could've sworn he actually heard something like a hissing from the villagers, like they were animals. An acoustic trick, some other sound getting mixed up with the sound of the rain.

Kasra took the communicator out and raised it to his lips. "We're heading to a small village," he said. "A few hundred occupants at the most. Sending through our coordinates."

The captive was taken to a small hut, and Kasra and Z3 were stopped by two men with blaster rifles slung over their shoulders. "Sorry, we need to see that man," Kasra explained, and tried to move past, but he was stopped again.

"You will wait," was the simple command. They shifted their hands to their rifles. He noticed how thin their arms were. The both of them were pale and emaciated. So much so that their bones strained their deathly translucent skin.

"Shall I exterminate them, Master?" Z3 asked in an enthusiastic electronic voice as they grabbed their weapons.

Kasra raised his eyebrows. Usually things had to be flesh and blood to have such bloodlust. Well then again, he was a war droid by nature, after all. "No," said Kasra, quickly, before they invited disaster. "We'll wait. Forgive my droid," he said to the armed men. They nodded silently, but he didn't need to be a Jedi to sense the aura of fear that emanated from them. The men ushered them to a nearby hut, where they were sat down and they waited, and the men were joined by two more and together they watched them. Across from Kasra and Z3 were three others, two women and a man, sitting with their arms around their knees and their backs against the wall. The man and one of the women were human, and the other woman was a Mirialan. Kasra glanced their way, catching the eye of the man, before he sat down himself and closed his eyes.

That aura of fear was not just coming from those two men he'd just met. He could feel it. Fear had consumed the whole village in its icy grip. It was a dark cloud that had descended upon the village, and bit by bit had smothered it.

A voice broke him from his brief meditation.

"Hey. Hey."

He opened his eyes and turned to the voice. The man sitting against the wall was leaning over towards him, trying to get his attention. "You're an off-worlder, aren't you? You look too healthy to be from Dathomir."

"Yes," said Kasra. "Why?" The three of them all looked to be in very good shape themselves, he noticed. They must be off-worlders as well.

"Do you have a ship?"

"Who are you?"

The woman nearest him, the human one, leaned over as well. "We crashed into the sea a few days ago. We need a way off this planet before we wind up dead. We can pay you once we're off, if you need credits. We get paid well, and we're willing to show a lot of gratitude if you can help us. All our communications were destroyed by the sea."

"What happened to make you crash into the sea?"

"It was a freak accident. The ship was perfectly fine for the whole journey until we passed through the Dathomir system, and then one of the engines started playing up. I don't even know what went wrong, but all of a sudden the ship was going down. The ship was right above Dathomir at the time, so we tried bringing her down gently to make some repairs, but the closer we got to the planet the worse the engine got until it gave out completely, and then we were heading down to the ocean. Some of us managed to get out in time, but we three were the only ones who survived past the first night."

"What happened to the others?"

There was a moment of silence, as it seemed the responsibility for telling the next part was being avoided. The first woman spoke up again. "We were attacked," she said. "By - a group of - we don't know what they were. People, but - these people were out of their minds. We got ourselves out of the water and headed for somewhere safer, and then I saw this woman watching us from the dark. I could see her very easily, she was so pale, and her hair was white as bone. We stopped, and then before we knew it these people - these people just came rushing at us from out of the forest, shrieking and screaming. They came at us with what looked like anything they could find. Anything sharp, anything heavy. A lot of them weren't even armed. They grabbed people and they started stabbing them, beating them, and biting them, and those they didn't kill then and there they dragged back into the forest. We shot at them, those of us that had weapons, but they just kept coming. They were like animals."

"We ran," said the man, "but only four of us got away. There were about fifty of us on the ship, ten of us who escaped the crash, and six of us were killed or captured by those savages. One more of us was killed by a ssurian. And then we arrived here. They confiscated our weapons, and they're holding us here because they don't trust us, but at least they haven't killed us. Not yet, anyway."

"Please," said the woman, "you have to help us. We're going to die on this planet if we don't get off soon."

At that moment, the conversation was interrupted. From outside the hut came a scream of agony. The inhuman, high scream pierced through the night, and Kasra got to his feet and went to the door of the hut. The guards moved to stop him, but he didn't need to leave the hut to see the source of the scream.

The man he had handed over to the villagers was burning. His whole body had erupted into flames, and he thrashed against his bonds and shrieked like a wild animal. There was a small crowd around him, keeping their distance, but not a hand raised to help him. He writhed and rolled himself around on the ground, in a desperate attempt to suffocate the flames, until his lungs gave out and his body collapsed. He was dead.

Kasra watched with his mouth agape. He turned to the villagers watching the hut, but they only looked back at him dispassionately.

They're all out of their minds.

He looked behind him to the others. Their faces were all stiff with fear.

He heard the sound of slow footsteps approaching. It was the old man he'd met in the forest. He glanced to the three against the wall, then to Z3, and then to Kasra, standing almost directly in front of him. He placed his hands on the shoulders of two of the guards, and they moved aside.

"I told you I needed him," said Kasra.

"I made no promises," said the old man. "He got what he deserved." He stepped into the hut, and walked calmly to the centre of the floor. "Tell me, why did you need a man like him?"

Kasra noticed a shifting in the guards. They were focused on him, and there was intent in that focus. He readied himself to take his lightsaber as soon as one of them made a move. "I'm a Jedi," he said. "My intentions are strictly peaceful. I'm searching for a certain artifact. I had reason to believe that he might've known about it."

"A Jedi," muttered the old man under his breath. There was a trace of contempt in those words. "Your kind have brought us enough trouble already."

"What do you mean? I'm not here to bring you trouble."

The old man stared at him. His eyes were hard. "We were visited by a Jedi, once. Guided to this planet, so he told us." His words were slow, calculated, meticulously enunciated, and bitter. "He brought us nothing but misery."

Kasra said nothing, not taking his eyes off the old man as he told his story.

"We struggled to survive on our own. Anyone would, on a planet like this. So the villagers worshipped the ground blessed by his feet when he came. The Jedi. He had power. He could protect them, so they thought. And he could. His sorcerer's tricks were very impressive, oh yes. So they turned to him for guidance. They wanted him to teach them his ways, so that they too could become strong. So that they didn't have to fear the darkness of Dathomir anymore. Do you know what he told them?"

He glanced to Kasra, who shook his head.

"To conquer your fears, become the thing to be feared."

"That is not a Jedi teaching."

"He became the thing to be feared in the dark. That Dark Jedi showed them that he was more worthy of their fear than the rancor and of the ssurians and all the other beasts of Dathomir. So they accepted him as their new ruler. He took three apprentices. Two men and one woman. Two now dead, thanks to you. The two men were the finest warriors of the village and the woman was a shaman of great gifts. He taught those three, and they too became strong. And the village was safe."

"Did he leave the village?"

"No. We left him. He and the woman devoted themselves further and further to the teachings of whatever malevolence gave him his power. And he became erratic. Demanding. Paranoid. He would not speak to his other two disciples, or to the village, except through the woman. He became drawn to the sea, and he demanded the village be moved to a particular spot on the coast, far from here. He didn't care how many that killed. And then he demanded sacrifices." The old man fixed Kasra with his stony eyes. "He would burn them. He demanded they hunt all the beasts they feared, and he would have them burned as sacrifices. And when they failed, he started demanding the villagers be burned."

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see one of the women open her mouth in a mixture of shock and revulsion as the fate of her comrades was revealed. "And you did it?" Kasra asked.

"That is why we are so few," said the old man. "Many would not do it. They would not burn their friends and their family. But others would. Like his former disciple, who just now met fiery justice."

"Why?" asked the woman who stared at the old man in horror.

"Because he made them safe."

"This woman," said that man down on the floor, "did she have white hair?"

"She did."

"Did he ever tell you why he was drawn to the sea?" asked Kasra.

The old man shook his head. "No. He gave demands, not reasons. If there were ever reasons for anything he did, he would have mentioned them to the woman, and only to the woman."

"Why her?"

He shook his head slightly, to tell him again that he did not know. "The man told us nothing. Not even his name. But I think the wiser of us knew the reason for that. He didn't want a name. He wanted us to know him only as 'the man.' So that his image would eclipse every other man we knew. Of course, many of us have much more creative names for him, but we don't repeat things like that to guests." He gave a wry smile.

The Man With No Name. Not very catchy, thought Kasra.

"Where can I find this man?" asked Kasra.

"Do you intend to kill him?" asked the old man.

"I intend to - talk to him. About a few things."

"Very well. But we will not be part of this. We have suffered and lost enough. I wish you the best of luck, but you will do this alone."

"Hold on," said the man from the crash. "We know roughly where to go. And if you give us back our weapons, we can fight." He stood and looked at Kasra. "If you can get us off this planet, we'll take you to the village, and we'll do what we can."

The old man looked between them. "Will you take them?"

He would. By the sound of it, he needed whatever help he could get.

* * *

The man's name was Coren, and the women were Arwen and Lahani. They were all capable fighters, and they had been serving as mercenaries, hired to protect a valuable shipment when they had crashed on Dathomir. Coren was a heavily-muscled man with short blonde hair, and Arwen and Lahani were women with lithe, agile, and strong figures, Lahani a dark-haired human, and Arwen the light-green-skinned Mirialan.

To get to the settlement by the sea required a long and dangerous journey through the forest. Instead of risking their lives and the structural integrity of Z3's parts, Kasra contacted the shuttle and announced that he would be returning back their way with three more.

The shuttle took off from the forest and flew slowly over the coastline. Everyone on board surveyed the ground ahead for signs that they were approaching the settlement. They flew with the utmost caution. Tension was high, and silence was broken only once.

"So you're a Jedi," said Coren.

"Yep."

Silence.

"There." Arwen pointed. "You can see some of the wreckage in the ocean up ahead. The grey ship."

The sharp angle of a ship's ruined engine pierced the dark horizon. The ocean was growing rough with the rising winds, and as they drew closer they could see the white foam as the waves broke against the wreck. The first wings of lightning flashed across the sky to herald the coming thunder.

Just beyond the wreck was a harsh seaside cliff, with a treacherous pile of crumbled boulders at its foot. "It's just beyond that cliff," said Lahani. "In the forest past the cliff was where we were attacked. They'll be right on the other side."

"Right," Kasra turned to the pilot. "Bring us down somewhere the shuttle will be safe, where it won't be too vulnerable to an ambush."

The shuttle was brought down a short distance from the cliff. Kasra, Z3, and the three mercenaries disembarked immediately. This renegade Jedi would have sensed them coming. Better to go to him than to wait for the welcoming committee.

The five of them stuck close together, Kasra and Z3 taking the lead, and the mercenaries in the rear, arranged so that together they kept a full view of all their surroundings. They moved around the base of the cliff.

This was the right place. He could feel it. The dark side was strong here.

When they rounded the cliff, the village was right upon them. The mercenaries hesitated as Kasra and Z3 went ahead without a moment's pause in their steps. "Wait," called Lahani. "Shouldn't we scout first?"

"They already know we're here. And this enemy can't be scouted with your eyes." He strode ahead, as he reached into his pocket and spoke to the cruiser. "I'm heading into another settlement now. Three mercenaries have joined me, but there's no way for me to know just how problematic things might be. The village is ruled by a Dark Jedi. This could be what I'm looking for."

Vaia's voice came back swiftly. "What's another Jedi doing there?"

"I think he was drawn to the holocron. This village and the other split apparently thanks to the violent influence of the Dark Jedi."

"So you've found the holocron? Or you know it's there?"

"An elder of the people that wanted nothing to do with him told me he was drawn to the sea around here. I think it's a strong indicator that's where the holocron lies. It might be underwater."

"Support is on its way," she said.

"Not too quickly," he urged her. "If he has something I need and fighting breaks out too soon, the holocron could be lost."

"I know. Call me just before the bloodshed starts."

When he emerged from the trees, the nearest villagers turned to stare at him and at the droid, and at the mercenaries that followed him. These villagers were healthier than the others. They were just as ghastly pale, but not quite so emaciated. And standing above the villagers, on a rock ledge near the mouth of a small cave on the side of the cliff, was the woman.

She was tall and deathly pale, and her hair was as white as they said. It was as if all the colour had drained from her. She wore dark robes which hung loosely around her, and there was something tied around her neck which swayed in the wind. Her eyes did not leave Kasra for a second. And his did not leave her. She descended slowly, and he noticed as she walked down the slope of the ledge that her feet were bare.

"That's her," said Coren.

The shaman. The third disciple.

She walked towards them, and the staring villagers parted to make way for her. Somehow they seemed to know she was coming, even the ones that weren't looking at her moving out of the way before she drew near them. She came closer, until Kasra could see the grey irises of her eyes.

"Where are the others?" demanded Arwen, though the despair in her voice said she already knew.

"I had them burned alive,"the shaman said.

Arwen whipped out her blaster in fury and took aim at the woman. But before she could fire, a choking sound came from her throat, and she was raised off her feet into the air, clutching at her neck. He blaster fell to the ground. The shaman had waved a lazy hand and dropped the Mirialan to the earth beside it, where she gasped for breath and Lahani and Coren squatted down to check if she was alright.

The shaman stared at Kasra. Her eyes were big and wide. Around them were puffy dark rings, and the whites of her eyes were tainted by redness. She looked as though she hadn't slept in years. Around her neck was a long chain of wooden beads, which at the bottom of the chain had more intricate, ritualistic designs. Hanging from her waist was the severed head of a Kobashi viper.

She did not speak. She only stared.

"We don't need trouble," said Kasra, though he felt that his chances for avoiding trouble were increasingly small. "I've come in search of an artifact."

The shaman looked over the five of them. She fixed her cold and bloodshot eyes on each of the mercenaries in turn, and then the droid. "The others will wait," she said, and gave the slightest gesture towards them with her head. The villagers closed in on them then, and instinctively the mercenaries raised their blasters. Z3 remained unperturbed in his analysis. "You will relinquish your arms," declared her imperious voice, "or my hand will be forced to more drastic measures."

And she was strong in the Force. Oh, yes, he could feel her strength. She wanted him to. She carried no weapons; the dark robes she wore were very light for this stormy weather, and she didn't have anywhere she could've put them. The Force was her only weapon. But it was a formidable one. More dangerous than any lightsaber.

The mercenaries surrendered their weapons with great reluctance, and they were left behind as Kasra followed the shaman. He glanced behind him as he walked away. He couldn't see where the others were being led. But he did notice that they had apparently made the same mistake as Z3's vendor on Nar Shaddaa, and hadn't noticed that the war droid's blades were retractable. Of course they wouldn't have; none of them could've had much experience with droids, let alone a Krath war droid.

The shaman led Kasra to the largest hut in the village. It was surrounded by a ring of tall sticks stood in the ground, mounted upon each of which were the skulls of the beasts of Dathomir. He saw kamurith skulls, the skulls of saurian fliers, and on the ground nearby was the skull of a rancor. The entrance to the hut was framed by the giant ribs of a slain animal, which curved around them, reaching up over their heads as they walked through.

Inside the hut the walls and the floors were nearly barren. Except for the figure of a man lying on the floor, face down. Kasra looked to the shaman. She gave him no response.

He approached the figure. He was bald, and he lay with his mouth and eyes both open, his head turned to the side. He placed his hand over the man's body. He was alive. Just not moving.

"Why is he like that?" he asked the shaman.

"His mind is ruined," she said. "He stays like that for many hours, sometimes."

"Is he your Master? The Jedi?"

"No."

"Who is he?"

"He was another who came searching for your artifact. And he found it. This is what it brought him. Now he lies catatonic and staring into emptiness for hours on end, and when he wakes from his reverie he walks around the village with no aim, speaking a language only he understands."

He moved around to look at the man's staring eyes. Then he caught a proper look at his face. And he realised who it was. The missing engineer. Luvo; he remembered the name. The man who had sparked this whole journey. Here he had ended up, lying on the floor of the shaman's hut like a corpse. He'd heard of Sith holocrons having adverse affects on others who tried to access it; sometimes Jedi would feel sick just by looking at one, but he'd never heard of anything like this. The man's mind had been obliterated.

"It's a beautiful language, in a way,"murmured the shaman.

"Rhythmic?"

"Like a chant."

"Why do you keep him around? If you're in the business of burning people alive, why not one who's barely alive as it is?"

"He does not wish for this one to be killed. He believes he has been gifted with profound insight."

He? Kasra was going to ask who she meant by 'He' but then he remembered. "The Man With No Name? The Jedi?"

"He believes that the holocron spoke to this man. He believes that its teachings, and its insights into the Force, speak through him in this strange language. This man and I are the only ones who are permitted to speak to Him in his isolation. He has the hope that He too might become inspired."

"The holocron - do you have it?"

She clasped her hands together behind her back. "No. It lies deep under the sea. Attempts to remove it have been unsuccessful."

"What do you mean? If he could access it and have it destroy his mind, what's the problem?"

"He didn't access it. He didn't even touch the holocron, as far as we know. It seems the holocron's creator wanted only the strongest with the Force to access his teachings. So far, it hasn't even been opened. My Master was unsuccessful when he attempted it."

"Do you know who the creator is?"

"A dead Sith Lord, by the title of Darth Nihilus. So goes the theory. It was said that Darth Nihilus spoke a language just like the one this man here speaks now. But we don't know what that language is, and we don't know how to translate it. The Master had thought it was the language of the ancient Sith, but translations failed."

"I found on my journey to this place," said Kasra, "that some of these Sith creations won't respond to certain Force users, but will respond to others. Did anyone else try accessing the holocron?"

A twitch of her lips before she responded. "No," she said. "He is adamant that He must be the one to claim the holocron."

"Despite his failure."

That same twitch of her pale lips again. The tiniest smile rested on her face. She raised her eyebrows. "Oh, yes, I suppose I'd better take you into the sea and let the two of us have an attempt, shouldn't I?" She gave a tiny laugh. It was cold and empty. "Do you think you'll manipulate me?" She drew near him and extended her long white fingers towards him. Instinct drove him away. Her hands followed him until her fingertips landed on his head. Her eyelids fluttered closed. She inhaled deeply. "You might be a formidable warrior," she mumbled, whispered, as if talking in her sleep, "but I can taste the weakness in you. Like the stench of disease."

She paced slowly around him. Her lips curled in a sneer. She spoke her words with a cruel hiss. "Do you know what I feel in you?" He could see her lips bare her teeth, like a circling predator. "Fear," she breathed. "Doubt. And great anger." She smirked. "Such a shame your fear is stronger than your anger." She laid a thin hand on his shoulder and looked as though she was suppressing a laugh. "And what do I taste in your fear? Is that - oh - you even think you're in love. Oh, the Jedi made a terrible mistake training you."

Kasra lowered his eyes to hers. "Would you like to know what weakness I see when I look at you?" He raised his eyebrows and stepped away from her hand, which returned to her side. "I see a woman serving a Master drawn to an artifact both of them are too weak to do anything more than look at. Oh no, I'm not wrong, and you know it. If you were any better than him you'd have killed him and claimed it for your own. Instead, the two of you are stuck in limbo in a tiny village on one of the worst planets in the galaxy, trying to decipher the ravings of a man whose brain has turned to sewage. So tell me more about weakness."

The two of them held each other's gaze for a long time. She did not blink. She did not move. He didn't need to be a Jedi to feel the hatred in her. But she was strong in the Force; that much was clear; her presence in the Force was raw and wild, not sharpened and refined by training but only intensified. And he knew that he was playing a dangerous game taunting this woman. Something wicked stared at him out from the depths of those bloodshot and sunken eyes.

Someone might have died then. Had it not been for the awakening of the formerly missing man Luvo lying comatose on the floor. He sat upright and he began intoning some bizarre chant in that strange language. His eyes stared right ahead, unfocused, as if he could see right through the walls and was gazing at something on the distant horizon. Then he bowed his head and began speaking down to the earth beneath him.

"Has there been even a partial success with any translation?" asked Kasra.

The shaman shook her head. She stared at the brain damaged man. Her face was the same mask of hate. "But He will want to know he's awake." Those cold eyes came back to Kasra.

"Shall we go and meet him?"


End file.
